Slider
by My God Can Beat Up Your God
Summary: Sakura thought she had the Narutoverse all figured out, but predicting the plot was a lot harder when you weren't the only person who got sucked in. Something else seems not quite right, though... "SI/OC." Sort of.
1. Enter the Ninja

**A/N: Just a hint: this might not be what it seems. Don't say I didn't warn you. Suggestions and feedback always appreciated.**

**Edit:** I really debated on whether or not to categorize this as a crossover, since I don't want anyone to feel "tricked" by the twist, so I'm just letting you know ahead of time. Crossover elements ahoy. However, I hope that readers will be able to follow along with little to no knowledge of the crossover anime in question and the setting and characters referenced are from Naruto (..for now..?). Happy reading!

* * *

**Chapter I: Enter the Ninja**

* * *

"Miss?"

A man's voice echoed in her head, far off and distorted, as if it was coming through a filter or projected from another room. Was he talking to her?

"Miss, are you alright?"

The voice was much louder this time.

"You've been staring into space for the past few minutes," the man said, placing a hand on her shoulder from behind.

The touch made her jolt, and her eyes snapped into focus.

"Not that it's any of my business, but you're holding up the line."

Everything was suddenly crisp, and she looked around her, stunned and utterly disoriented.

"Um, sorry…" Without thinking, she stepped forward, taking in the scene in front of her. She was standing in front of a long, rectangular counter at a food stand of some sort. There were people waiting in line behind her, and several customers sat in stools along a bar area, some eating silently while others conversed in low, jovial tones.

Her attention was drawn back to the counter at the sound of the cashier impatiently clearing her throat.

"You still need to pay," the woman said, her fingers tapping lightly on the take-out box that was sitting on the counter.

_Um… Where am I? Why is everyone staring at me?_

She had learned many lessons over the course of her life. Some lessons, of course, were more useful than others, and the most useful lesson was this: fake it 'til you make it. In other words, when you zone out in a public place, always pretend like you know _exactly_ where you are and how you got there. True, maybe for a more self-aware person, this wouldn't qualify as groundbreaking, life-changing advice, but for her?

_Incredibly _useful_._

"Oh! Right, pay, of course."

_I'm normal, I swear._

Mechanically, she reached down for her purse, only to find herself grabbing thin air. Where…? Oh no. Not this again.

"Gah… my purse, it's gone!"

Panicking, she continued to fruitlessly grasp through the air for her obviously not-present purse, as if perhaps _maybe _it would magically appear if she just stood there long enough. _Oh no, did I leave it at my house again? At the coffee shop? …Did I leave it on the bus?!_

She heard the cashier sigh. "Did you check your pouch?" The woman said pointedly, eyeing somewhere below her waist.

"Pouch?"

Following suit, she looked down and saw a black pouch wrapped snugly around her leg, half-hidden from view beneath her dress.

That was… weird. She didn't remember putting on a red dress, and she didn't even own any black pouches. Then again, she had always had problems with her memory. It's not as if this would be the first time a piece of clothing had disappeared or reappeared out of the blue.

"_Miss_…"

"S-sorry..!" She stuttered, quickly diving her hand towards the pouch. She opened it, blindly grabbed for the contents, and pulled out a handful of coins.

_Thank goodness…_

Tossing the coins onto the counter, she froze when she realized that she didn't recognize the currency.

Had she gotten lost in a foreign country again? She was never going to hear the end of this…

Quickly grabbing the take-out container, she left all of the coins on the counter—the woman didn't seem to be complaining, so it must have been enough—and scurried out of line.

She got about twenty feet before panic set in.

Rows of buildings stood on either side of her, separated by a large dirt road: the architecture looked modern and strangely familiar, but…

Where was she? Where was _here_? And… Oh, no. This was setting a new record for her, really. It was actually kind of impressive.

She'd managed to space out so hard that she'd _forgotten her own name._ Was that even possible?!

_Quick, status check. Name? No idea. Age? Drawing a blank. Location? Um…_

Her brow furrowed as she tried to piece together what she _did _remember: she had vague memories of attending school, participating in club activities, hanging out with her friends… but their faces were blurry, the details just out of reach.

Absently, she wondered if she should be more upset about this. Sure, she was currently standing the middle of a fairly busy road, looking utterly terrified, but… Logic told her that yes, she should be frightened. Amnesia was not normal. Coming to your senses in the middle of ordering take-out was also very definitely not normal, and having all of this occur in some sort of foreign country was… well, you know. Dangerous.

More importantly, her purse was missing.

_Someone probably mugged me_. _And I liked that purse, I think. I mean, I don't remember what it looked like, but I'm almost positive I liked it._

And that meant…

She glanced down at the red dress she was wearing, at the black pouch she did not recognize, and sucked in a sharp breath. She wasn't wearing her own clothes, and she had amnesia.

_Oh god. Somebody pr-probably... probably..._

All of the blood drained from her face as she was swarmed with images of faceless men grabbing her clothing, groping her, coupled with images of herself fruitlessly struggling to get away—she could even imagine herself cry out, "N-no! Please s-stop! What are you doing? Aaaaaah!"

"Oh, hey!"

She blinked, momentarily snapping out of her self-induced panic. An oddly familiar man was walking towards her, lightly waving a hand in greeting. His dress was odd, and maybe someone else's eyes would have been drawn towards the scar across his nose, but it was the sight of the silver hitai-ate resting innocently across his forehead that knocked the wind from her lungs.

That was… it was… "Iruka…?"

No. It was just not possible.

Iruka smiled at her. "Picking up lunch for the team?"

There was silence. She was staring up at him with large, comically wide eyes.

"Um…. Sakura, are you okay?" Iruka's smile dropped.

If her silence hadn't been an indicator that something was wrong, the sight of his ex-student bursting into tears and falling dramatically to the floor in a heap definitely tipped him off.

"N-no, I'm not alright!" Sakura sobbed, tears beginning to stream down her cheeks. "I've been mugged, kidnapped, _violated, I have no idea where I am _and I-I'm so traumatized that I've managed to convince myself that I've been sucked into Naruto!"

With that, Iruka also found himself at a complete loss for words.

* * *

Sakura's first lesson upon entering the world of Naruto: When you crumple into a ball and start hyperventilating in the middle of town, your ex-Academy instructor will then escort you to Konoha's hospital, where you will be poked and prodded and spend the next several hours convincing the hospital staff that you're really okay, you swear. Really, you just forgot where you were, and you've been having a lot of trouble with your memory and maybe just hallucinated a tad…

Sakura's second lesson was that Konoha's doctors took these sorts of episodes very seriously (because apparently dissociative amnesia was a thing), and that admitting to frequent memory loss got you escorted down to the psych ward for a full evaluation. Fortunately, instead of asking her questions about what she remembered about herself, the doctors kept asking her about how she was sleeping, was she eating any better, and had her nightmares started dying down yet? Her file indicated that her genin team had recently returned from the Land of Waves, after all, and Sakura hadn't been coping very well with it.

Sakura didn't remember any of this happening in the manga, but by God, she was going to play that up for all it was worth. Because she _was _terrified, and she _did _have amnesia.

The only problem?

Her amnesia was about her own life, not Sakura's.

Oh, sure, she didn't remember much about Sakura's life either. After all, it's not as if the manga focused much on the day to day lives of its characters. Still, when you remembered more about a piece of manga you've read than what you were doing yesterday, there was a problem.

When you remembered the name a fictional character but couldn't remember your _own _name, there was a _big damn problem._

Methodically, Sakura found herself sorting through her memories, trying to figure out what she did and didn't know. She was able to list off a handful of other manga novels, which she usually read on her way home. She definitely had some non-identifying knowledge of her world and even some situation-specific memories—like attending high school—but everything else was curiously blank. She knew she had friends and family, but she couldn't for the life of her remember their names or faces.

A few bouts of crying hysterically, a few well-played states of pretend-catatonia—and one or two instances of actually zoning out, but that really couldn't be helped—and Sakura was finally discharged. One would think catatonic behavior would get you committed, but Konoha's psych ward seemed more interested in questioning people and less interested in actually treating mental problems.

She was escorted home by her parents, who spent the walk home loudly lamenting their decision to send their poor, pink-haired daughter off to ninja school.

* * *

"Sakura, honey, could you get the door please?" Mebuki—Sakura's mother, if she could remember to call her that—called out from the kitchen.

Upon hearing her mother, Sakura paused. She had been in the process of ransacking her room, only recently having managed to escape to the relative solitude of her bedroom.

As soon as they arrived home, Sakura was stuck listening to her parents bicker with each other. She was then ordered to help her mother make dinner, and then she was told to clean the dishes, and _then _she was kicked out of the kitchen for stressing her mother out (who then proceeded to stress-bake several batches of chocolate chip cookies). When she was finally allowed to retreat to her bedroom, her father demanded she keep the door open because "it wasn't healthy to be cooped up like that." He then went on a tangent about how the doctors said she shouldn't be alone, and how she really should spend more time with her family and was apparently in need of more "social and emotional support."

How the real Sakura managed to balance family life with what she remembered about Naruto's ninja escapades was a mystery.

Sighing in defeat, Sakura exited her room and dragged herself towards the front door. Flinging it open, she found herself face to face with Kakashi Hatake.

Her first reaction?

She was _starstruck_.

For several moments, Sakura could only gape at him. Outside of Iruka and her own reflection, Sakura realized that this was the first _main character _she'd come face to face with. And he was tall, and a ninja, and his outfit was _awesome, _and his hair was—well, actually, he could probably use a haircut, but otherwise he was just…

"So cool…"

Kakashi blinked at her. "Um, hello… Sakura-san?"

"Oh!" She flushed. "Um, uh, I'm sorry! Can I help you? Do you want to come in? I.. I can make you some tea!" Sakura said this all very quickly, embarrassed and still not quite over her dazed first impression.

"Thank you for the offer, but I shouldn't be too long. I—"

"Sakura?_" _Mebuki called out, poking her head around the corner. When she saw Kakashi, she scowled fiercely and strolled through the living room towards the front door. "_You!" _She seethed, eyes narrowing in obvious displeasure._"_I've been meaning to have a talk with _you_."

_Uh… _Sakura gulped, and she saw Kakashi do the same.

"Ah, hello, Haruno-san-"

"Don't you _'Hello, Haruno-san_' me!" Mebuki seethed, forcibly pushing Sakura away from the front door.

"Um, miss-I mean, mother…" Sakura tentatively tugged on Mebuki's sleeve, but the woman ignored her.

Sakura was forced to sit there and listen to Mebuki rant and rave at Kakashi, her face growing redder and redder as the conversation went on.

"…almost got my daughter killed! What kind of jonin-instructor leads their brand new genin team on a B-rank mission? You should have taken them home _immediately—"_

This continued for the next five minutes, and by the end of it, Sakura felt immensely sorry for her new teacher.

"You are completely right, Haruno-san."

Sakura blinked.

"Uh… huh?"

"It was completely unacceptable for us to have put your daughter in such danger without adequate preparation," Kakashi said in an even tone. "After I heard she missed the rest of today's training because she was in the hospital, I came here to personally check on her and make sure she was doing okay. My, something smells wonderful. Are those cookies?"

"Ah, my cookies!" Successfully distracted, Mebuki ran back to the kitchen, leaving Sakura alone with Kakashi once more.

He did not seem inclined to speak with her, though, and was patiently waiting for Mebuki to return from the kitchen. Needless to say, it was awkward.

When Mebuki finally re-entered the room, she had a plateful of warm cookies with her and seemed to be in a much better mood. "Now, where were we, again?"

"I see you managed to save them," Kakashi said, neatly sidestepping the question. "Those look delicious."

"Oh, yes, thank you for reminding me," her mother smiled. "I got a bit carried away with my cooking, it seems. Would you like some?"

"I would _love _some," Kakashi smiled right back at her.

Sakura stared at him with a blank face. _Are you kidding me?_

"You don't happen to have any bakers in the Haruno family tree, do you?" Kakashi said, after having removed his mask and taken a bite of the cookie her mother offered. "These might be the best chocolate chip cookies I've ever tasted."

_He was really laying it on thick, wasn't he?  
_  
Who knew Kakashi could be this suave?

"O-oh, well, I don't know…" Mebuki stammered, mirroring Sakura's earlier dazed expression. "They're nothing special…"

"No, really, they're wonderful—"

"..Ah, but back on topic…" Kakashi continued, "Given Sakura's condition, I thought it might be good for her to take the next week off and relax some. It's not normally something we do, of course, but I think in this case it'd be perfectly acceptable. She's a wonderful student, at any rate, and the break would be well-deserved."

Mebuki glowed with pride.

"Additionally, I have some… personal matters to attend to, so it works out quite well."

That was all Mebuki needed to hear: the tables turned, her mother thanked him for understanding, noting how rare it was for ninjas to get "time off" and how impressed she was for checking up on her daughter. After promising him that Sakura would be well-taken care of for the next week, Mebuki insisted on sending some cookies home with him, which Kakashi readily accepted.

After Mebuki handed him the container full of cookies and having lathered on a few more compliments, Kakashi gave another enigmatic smile—he was really quite handsome, Sakura noted—before finishing up his last cookie.

Pulling his mask back up, he gave a one-handed wave. "See you next week, then, Sakura-san."

With that, Kakashi turned and left, leaving a dumbfounded Sakura staring after him as he walked off.

Wait a second. Had she just seen _Kakashi Hatake's_ face?


	2. That's Not Normal

**Chapter II: That's Not Normal**

* * *

Sakura stared at the clock perched innocently on her nightstand. It was 11:32AM, Day Two.

She was still in Konoha. Sakura was not sure how she felt about this.

After some deliberation, she decided to go with 'hesitantly optimistic', mostly because she couldn't remember anything about her old life anyway, so there was really no point in being depressed about it.

Besides, she had other things to stress over. Like figuring out how she was going to cope with her new situation, since she had no idea where to start. Her first idea was to get out a notepad and write down everything she could remember about Naruto, in chronological order… except that was _really hard_ to do when she considered how long the anime was, and how much she hadn't paid a lick of attention to.

For instance, she knew her team had already gone to the Land of Waves, and that the next plot point was... the Chunin Exams, maybe? But the anime hadn't exactly had a time table, and she hadn't ever cared enough to look up or even piece together a fan-based one, so for all she knew that was happening _tomorrow_... or in a couple of months.

Hopefully a couple of months, because she was kind of terrified and hadn't even tried using chakra yet.

Speaking of which...

Gathering her courage, Sakura closed her eyes, put her hands together in front of her, and...

...stood their awkwardly for a few seconds. Nothing was happening.

Okay, well. That was fine. Ninjutsu required hand seals, after all, which she knew none of. But still, she should be able to feel chakra or something, right? And she was sure that ninjas still did things like walk over water and over trees and.. whatever else ninjas did to show off... without having to use hand signs.

After trying a few more times (admittedly, not for very long), Sakura decided that maybe she should try getting more familiar with the layout of Konoha first. After all, she could probably make a convincing case of being too afraid to fight or use chakra if she cried enough and acted properly traumatized, but not remembering how to get to the grocery store or the Hokage's office was going to be a little harder to explain.

* * *

Konoha was bigger than she expected.

Sakura had been walking around for about an hour before she reached this conclusion. Maybe if she had put more thought into it, she wouldn't have been so surprised. From her _very _vague and mostly unhelpful recollections, Sakura knew that the real-her was from a much, much larger city, so if anything Konoha should have seemed smaller than expected, but, well...

...she had pictured Konoha as having, like 100 people in it. You know, a ramen shop, an adult bookstore, a few civilian districts... two or three classrooms, maybe 20 jonin... Obviously, that was an unrealistic expectation, but if there were really _this many people living there_, why did so few ninja get entered into, say, the chunin exams? Unless there were a lot more civilians than ninja, after all. But then again, wasn't Kohona supposed to be the military-central of the country (which was governed by civilians)? Or maybe _everyone was secretly a ninja._ Like her dad. Her dad was a genin, right? But he also had a day job, because really, who'd want to send a 40-year-old genin out on missions? That'd just be embarrassing.

Sakura was still lost in thought when she heard a voice that managed to both be familiar and deeply surreal at the same time.

"Sakura-chan!"

Sakura froze in her tracks. Slowly, she turned to look towards the direction of the voice. No, it wasn't... was it?

A bright orange blob with unruly blonde hair was running towards her, waving his arm frantically as he neared. "Hi, Sakura!"

She knew she was still staring at him like he was some kind of ghost and that her jaw hanging open, but she couldn't seem to do anything about it because—

_Because oh god it's the titular character, what do I do?!_

"What are you doing? I can't believe we got the week off... Kakashi-sensei just disappeared."

She was just about to respond (really, she was) when a thought struck her.

"We don't even have any missions... can you believe it?!" Naruto complained, folding his arms together grumpily.

What was she supposed to say? How would Sakura have responded?

"Um, Sakura? Helloooo?"

Oh God. What if he realized _she wasn't Sakura?!_

"Are you okay?" She saw Naruto tilt his head. "You don't seem like yourself today..."

_OH GOD, HE WAS ONTO HER._

"Um, uh, I-I have to go!" Sakura stuttered. "Sorry, I'm really sorry, bye!"

With that, Sakura darted off, leaving a very confused Naruto in her wake. She heard him calling out, but she was too much of a chicken to turn back around, and really, if she was going to run away like a giant coward she might as well not half-ass it.

When she finally realized Naruto was not chasing after her, Sakura slowed down to a walk. Her heart was still racing, and people were looking at her funny, but otherwise nothing bad had happened... well, except for the fact that Naruto probably thought she was off her rocker. So that was great.

_Okay, that was a one-time only thing. The next time I see someone I recognize, I will not freak out and I will have a ordinary conversation like an ordinary human being. I had no problem talking to Kakashi-sensei, after all._

Well, actually, she had stared at Kakashi like he was some kind of movie star, but he hadn't seemed to notice or care.

_Okay, that wasn't a very good example_. Still, the next time—

And just like that, another familiar blonde was practically bulldozing her way through civilians as she walked down the road, her two much-less-obtrusive teammates trailing after her.

_Why_ was this happening to her _now_? Was everyone and their mother walking around town today or what?!

Frantically, Sakura looked around. Ino was still walking in her general direction, but the girl in question didn't seem to see her.

Okay, she could do this. She'd just wave at Ino and call her a Pig and say she had to go do some very important ninja-related activity, and then Ino would vouch for her being completely in character and definitely not another person trapped in Sakura's body, and everything would be a-okay.

Before Sakura could say anything, though, a man standing at a nearby vendor had blocked Ino's path. "Miss, do you have a few minutes?"

Ino stared at him intensely for several seconds, her expression very serious. And rather angry...

"Who the hell are you?"

"Oh, um," the civilian stammered. "I was just—"

"Are you a ninja?" Ino interrupted. She tapped her foot impatiently, and Sakura noticed that Shikamaru and Chouji had finally caught up with her. They both looked exhausted.

"Well, no," The man laughed. "I work at that jewelry stand,"—he gestured behind him—"and I was wondering—"

"If you're not a ninja, then why are you bothering me?" Ino glared. "I don't have time for ordinary people."

The salesman—apparently having no idea how to react to that kind of statement—opted to just stare at her awkwardly until Ino rolled her eyes and stalked off.

...straight towards Sakura, who, of course, stared up at her like a deer caught in headlights.

"What are _you_ looking at?" Ino demanded.

And just like that, her courage shriveled up and died.

"N-nothing, no one! I was just, um..." Sakura's eye caught sight of a nearby building. "I just remembered I left something at the library! Sorry, I have to go, bye!"

On second thought, maybe she'd try proving that she hadn't suddenly developed crippling social anxiety tomorrow...

* * *

A half-hour later, Sakura had managed to convince herself that she had intended to go to the library all along. After all, what better place was there to learn about ninjas?

Yes, Sakura nodded sagely to herself, this was a most logical destination. However...

She sighed, looking dejectedly down at the stack of books in front of her. Konoha's history books were, unfortunately, the most boring pieces of literature ever written. It's like they weren't even _trying. _And where were the books telling her what Sakura's favorite food was supposed to be, and whether or not filler episodes counted as canon?

After some more fruitless skimming, Sakura decided that the young adult section might be more helpful. After all, history books for children would be a lot easier to understand and only covered general information, right?

Sakura grabbed a few promising titles off the shelf and was about ready to check out (because all things considered, she did not want be caught reading children's history books in the middle of the library) when she passed a header reading, "Manga."

What? Konoha had manga?

_Well_, Sakura thought, _That makes sense. After all, Kakashi reads that Icha Icha series all the time, so of course they'd have other kinds of fiction._

Curiously, Sakura approached the aisle and scanned through the rows. The familiar cover-styles were oddly comforting, and Sakura found herself reaching out for the first volume of one of the larger series' available.

"Majou Shoujo-nin! Secret Guardian of the Land of Lava..."

_Mariko Shiga was just a 15-year-old girl from a merchant family in a small village. Her life was ordinary, until one day she found herself attacked by a band of thieves and saved by Kenji, a mysterious missing-nin. After discovering she possesses a rare bloodline ability that could change the fate of the country, Mariko finds her life turned upside down. Torn between her newfound ninja heritage and her old life, Mariko must preserve the life she knows and protect the town she grew up in from the ravages of civil war. With both new and old allies, Mariko must act as an ordinary girl by day, while fighting to save her country by night under the identity of Majou Shoujo-nin!_

Hmm, interesting...

* * *

"Here's your order!" Ayame smiled at her, gently sliding a bowl of ramen towards Sakura.

Sakura nodded politely at the girl in thanks before allowing her gaze to drift back to the manga in her hands. She was already on the 5th volume, and although the summary had been cheesy, Majou Shoujo-nin turned out to be fairly entertaining.

Somewhere in her bag were two history books. Sakura figured she had done her part by checking them out. Really, her day had been incredibly stressful so far, and she was due for a well-deserved break.

Besides, it's not like reading Majou Shoujo-nin was _completely _useless.

_I mean, _Sakura reasoned, _think about how much I'm learning about Konoha's culture. After all, popular entertainment says a lot about societal values and common, um..._

"...understand how everything we have to do ends up being so _boring_," Ino complained.

_Ino again?!_

Whipping her head up, she saw that Ino, Shikamaru and Chouji had taken seats at the far side of the bar.

Sakura panicked. She hadn't even touched her ramen yet.

"Our _teacher _didn't even teach us anything today. I thought we were supposed to be _ninja_," Ino continued, glaring heatedly at the counter.

Next to her, Chouji cleared his throat. "W-well... I mean, we can't new learn stuff every day. You've been really angry these past two days... Maybe you should—"

"Shut up!"

Sakura quivered in her seat. Maybe if she just put her head down and quietly ate her ramen, nobody would notice she was there.

She heard Shikamaru sigh to himself. "We're genin, I don't know what you expect. You have to start with the basics."

"I don't have time for the basics," Ino's glare somehow managed to become even fiercer when it was leveled on Shikamaru. Slamming her fist down on the counter, she said, "If that Asuma guy's not going to teach us anything interesting, then I'm just not going to go to trainings."

There was a beat of silence. Chouji looked too frightened to say anything, while Shikamaru's put-out expression screamed, '_Business as usual.'_

"You can't be a ninja without a jonin instructor," Shikamaru pointed out.

"Then I'm just going to have to find a new teacher!"

"You can't just _get _a new jonin teacher, Ino..." Shikamaru explained, far more patiently than Sakura would have expected. "It doesn't work like that. Even if you begged the Hokage, there's no way—"

"What the hell is a Hokage?"

Chouji spluttered out a series of half-formed words that Sakura couldn't understand. She appreciated the sentiment, though.

_Okay, now I'm really confused._

"The Hokage's the person in charge of a hidden village..." Shikamaru sighed.

Ino wrinkled her nose. "Person in charge, huh?"

..Shikamaru didn't really think Ino was that stupid, did he?

"Yep," Shikamaru said, taking a sip of water.

Okay, apparently he did.

Ino didn't respond right away. Suddenly, she snapped her fingers together, and turned to Shikamaru excitedly. "Oooooh, you're talking about that blonde lady with the huge knockers, aren't you?"

Sakura froze. Blonde _what now?_

Was... was she talking about Tsunade?!

This elicited another deep sigh from the strangely and utterly unphased Shikamaru. "I really have no idea what you're talking about."

But Sakura did.

"Ino." Sakura had made her way across the table and was clutching the blonde's shirt. "I need to talk to you. Alone."


	3. Team Ino

**Chapter III: Team Ino**

* * *

"Honey?" Mebuki called out, peeking into Sakura's room as she opened the door. She was holding a plate filled with diced apples, crackers, and cheese. "I brought you two snacks!"

Sakura looked towards her mother from her position on the floor and sighed to herself. She thought about yelling at her mother to please, for the love of god, _knock _before coming in—and hey, actually, how about not coming into her room _at all _because this was like, the third time she'd done this since Sakura had dragged Ino here an hour ago—but what did it matter?

"Thanks, mom." She tried not to sound too dejected.

(Her mom didn't seem to notice. But then, people didn't seem to be noticing much these days.)

"Of course! I'm so glad you invited Ino over to visit..."

Sakura looked around her room, her eyes briefly resting on the stack of manga sitting on the floor next to her. Ino had finally stopped going through her belongings and generally invading her personal space and was now lounging comfortably on her bed.

Sakura had hoped that her house would have offered a little bit more privacy, but Mebuki was making things difficult. She had, in all honesty, immediately regretted dragging the blonde to her house. But then, what choice had she had? The whole village would have known by now something weird had been going on...

* * *

**Sometime earlier.**

* * *

"What are you talking about? Of course I'm the real Ino!"

"No you're not," Sakura repeated, dragging her further down the alleyway. Did she have to talk so loud? "The real Ino would never have said something like that about Asuma, or quitting the team..." _She had a good twenty-four hours, she should have at least managed to figure out the basics... _"And do you even recognize me?! You didn't even say hello earlier."

"Just because I was too busy to talk to you doesn't mean anything," Ino glared at her.

This girl was really annoying.

"And not knowing who the Hokage is? That's pretty careless of you."

"Well I _am _the real Ino!" Ino insisted, ignoring this latest piece of evidence. "And you can't prove otherwise. Shikamaru and that fat kid'll even back me up on it!"

"His name is _Chouji_, and you shouldn't call him that. You're going to make him upset."

"Well, I'd be upset too if I looked like that."

"That's not the..." Sakura stuttered, "Okay, look—"

"Well, you know what _I _think?" Ino interrupted. "I think that maybe _you're _not the real Sakura!"

"_What_?" Sakura scoffed. That was completely uncalled for! "Of course I'm the real Sakura! That's ridiculous. Besides, if I wasn't the real Sakura, then how would I know that that _you're _not the real Ino?"

"Maybe you're just trying to draw suspicion off of yourself! Well, it's not going to work, because I'm onto you."

"Of course I'm going to be suspicious when my _best friend since we were kids _doesn't even say hello properly to me on the street," Sakura said, crossing her arms defensively. "You're lucky that I didn't go straight to the Hokage! It's only because I wasn't sure that I decided to talk to you privately. We _are _friends, after all..."

"Oh," Ino said. She stopped talking and stared at Sakura, apparently not sure where to go from there. "Well, thanks for the concern, but since there's nothing wrong with me, you really didn't have to." After a moment, she added, "So this conversation is over."

With that, Ino shrugged out of Sakura's grip and turned to head back out of the alleyway.

Wait... She hadn't even gotten to talk to her yet! Over? This conversation hadn't even _happened_.

"Wait!" Sakura shouted, dragging an irritated Ino back into the alleyway. "I'm actually not the real Sakura, though."

"Huh?" There was a beat of silence. "Ha! What did I tell you? You were so obvious, it wasn't even funny."

Sakura sighed.

"I'm surprised you made it this long without someone calling you out."

_..Really, Ino? _

"Wait! Does that you're really not from this world either? That's awesome, I thought I was the only one! Do you remember anything the world you came fr—"

That was about as far as Ino got before Sakura lunged for Ino's mouth, acutely aware of the man passing down the main road who had stopped to gawk at them. Damned Ino.

(Obviously, the odd look had everything to do with Ino shouting at the top of her lungs and _nothing _to do with Sakura effectively groping the girl in a dark alleyway.)

"Shhhh, someone's going to hear you!" Sakura whispered before moving to lead her back out of the alley. "Let's go someplace quieter..."

* * *

..And so that's how they found themselves in Sakura's room. It had been a painful hour, but she had managed to gather a lot of useful information about Ino.

Sakura learned, for instance, that Ino was also suffering from memory loss and similarly did not remember her own name.

She also learned that Ino did not like to listen when other people talked.

And that she, in all likelihood, did not comprehend how shouting out sensitive information about the plot of Naruto in the middle of a busy street was kind of a terrible idea.

And, oh, that Ino was just in general _a complete idiot_.

On top of that, Sakura was having a hard time trying to figure out exactly how much Ino knew about Naruto. She seemed to know some oddly specific (and potentially incriminating) information, while at the same time casually forgetting basic knowledge that any fan should know. In the end, Sakura was left frustrated and at her wit's end, because Ino also did not like to answer questions in any way that could be described as useful.

"So, Ino," Sakura said after her she was sure Mebuki had disappeared, "I know we went over this before, but, can you maybe tell me a little bit more about what you know about Naruto? For real this time?"

"You're not very bright, are you?" Ino rolled her eyes. "Why are you so obsessed with talking about that, anyway? Don't you realize where we are?"

Sakura felt herself deflate. "I'm trying to—"

"We're in _Naruto! _One of the most popular, action packed anime on the market! We're _literally ninjas who can teleport and shoot fireballs out of their hands!"_

"We're also living in a world of child soldiers," Sakura interrupted, "who are about to be thrown headfirst into a war. People die here all of the time, and if we mess things up or get found out, we could be tortured or worse—"

"Oh, whatever. We're not going to get tortured. Naruto is a shonen manga. They only add those kinds of details in to make it feel dark, but at the end of the day, it's all about Naruto learning cool fighting moves and saving the day."

"That's—" Sakura stopped herself. There was no use in arguing with her. "That doesn't mean we should be drawing attention to ourselves. If someone figures us out—"

"I'm not an _idiot_," Ino huffed. "Of course I'm not going to go spouting out that I'm not Ino and that I'm from another world. Everyone would think I'm crazy or worse, they might believe me and lock me up."

_Oh, thank God._

"But that doesn't mean I'm going to sit here and not do what I want to do. This isn't an anime anymore. From here on out, nobody knows what's supposed to happen except for us, so how could anyone know that we're not doing what we're supposed to be doing?"

"Ino... if you keep acting completely out of character, what are people going to think?"

"We're twelve, right?" Ino had resumed walking around her room, bristling with energy again. "Obviously, it means I'm going through puberty."

"_No_," Sakura sighed. They had already gone over this at least three times. _At least. _"They're going to think—"

"Are these _shuriken?_" Ino said excitedly, apparently having found Sakura's stash as she continued to rifle through her belongings. "This is so cool!"

Exasperated, Sakura leaned back into the bedpost behind her with a little too much gusto. There was a loud _crack_ as her skull made contact with the post.

"I mean, all my life I've had to put up with being normal. Everything in my life was just as boring as anyone else's. Nothing about me was special, you know?"

Sakura moaned, cradling the back of her head with both hands.

"And now something cool has finally happened! And it's real! It's not just a trick or my imagination or anything, it's really real!"

God damnit, that _hurt_. Was her bedpost made of metal?!

"So we can't just sit here and let this opportunity be wasted! We need to go do something with it!"

"Do.. something.. with what?" Sakura said, still moaning.

"I'm a ninja now!" Ino said. "We both are! We've got a chance to fight epic battles and save the world and become heroes. Hell, we could become _super _heroes here!"

"Okay, I think... we need to back up for a second..."

"Back up?" Ino wrinkled her nose. "The only way to go is forward!"

"Yeah, but, um, about that..." Sakura said helplessly. "Look, it's nice that you're excited about losing your memory and waking up in someone else's body and all, but I don't think you understand exactly where we are. There's a lot of complicated stuff that's going to go down soon, and I mean, I know it's shonen, but people are going to die_ for real _and if we're not careful, one of those people could be _us_—"

"Don't be an idiot. I'm not going to die—I'm the heroine here, and the heroine _never _dies." Ino said before placing both hands on her hips. "I mean, _sometimes _the heroine dies, but if she does she always gets brought back to life. So my point still stands."

"Ino, this isn't a story anymore." Ino looked like she was about to start arguing with her, so Sakura quickly amended her statement, "And even if it was, Naruto's the hero, not you. That's why the manga is called Naruto and not Ino. If anything, _I'm _the heroine of this story, and to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure I can—"

"You're not thinking about this rationally," Ino stated with a huff.

Sakura bit her lip to stop herself from screaming.

"Sure, Naruto was the hero before. He was your typical underdog who goes from loser to world champion by the end of the story, eventually reaching his full potential and gaining the respect of everyone who'd ever doubted him. _Or so it seemed_." Stopping for a moment, Ino cleared her throat. With a flourish, Ino pointed an index finger at Sakura. "Suddenly, from no where appears a seemingly ordinary school girl who has been transported from the real world into a land of ninja! Who sent her there? What mysterious power dragged her to Konoha? Follow Ino as she unravels this thrilling mystery and discovers her destiny, while saving the characters she knows and loves from the cruel hands of fate!"

Sakura stared blankly in Ino's general direction. What was she even supposed to say to that? Maybe… Maybe she should try changing tactics.

"Um, okay... but Ino, let's say you go on doing whatever it is you want to do that involves... um, saving the characters of Naruto..."

(_That doesn't even make any sense... No, just go with it, Sakura!_)

"Don't you think," Sakura continued, "That it might be useful to go over what _might _happen, so you can use it to your advantage?"

Sakura tentatively looked back at Ino. Oh thank God, she actually looked interested. And she hadn't even interrupted her yet!

"..I guess, maybe. It depends," Ino narrowed her eyes.

_Don't screw this up, Sakura_.

"Also, you might have noticed that some of the technology here is different, right? I mean, they've got television but most people don't seem to watch it very frequently. And they don't have computers like ours, or guns... if we started mentioning technology that doesn't exist, it could be dangerous. So even if you want to re-write the 'plot', it's still important for us to learn more about this world."

"Why the hell would they have televisions but not guns?"

"Um..." Sakura started, "Well I-I mean... how should I know? I'm not the author."

"That's _stupid_. Why the hell should I waste my time learning a bunch of boring stuff about some world that doesn't follow basic logic when I could be learning how to shoot fireballs out of my hands? Hey," Ino interrupted herself, "You know a lot about this place. Teach me how to walk up walls."

"W-well, I haven't exactly figured out how to do that yet..."

"Ugh!"—Ino sounded _truly _disgusted— "Well, we're just going to have to work harder. And the first thing we need to do is find someone to teach us how to do stuff."

"Yeah… but, um, actually, that's what our genin teams are for. You know... Shikamaru and Chouji and Asuma..."

Ino immediately rolled her eyes. "You're kidding me, right? I'm not going back there! I spent an entire day with them and all we did is pull weeds and shovel manure. I don't have time for that. No, if we want to do something, we're going to have to do it ourselves. We're going to have to start our _own _team!"

Several seconds passed as Sakura attempted to wrap her head around this.

"Um... Ino, I don't think it works like that."

"It does now."

"No, it really doesn't. And besides, I'm already on Team Seven."

"You'll just have to quit, then. They'll only get in the way of our training, and I'm not interested in teaming up with slackers."

Okay, obviously, Sakura had not explained the way Naruto worked well enough...

"Listen, you can't just... _quit _your genin team. We'll... we'll get fired." They _would _get fired, wouldn't they? That was a thing, right? "You have to be on a genin team in order to be a ninja."

This did not sit well with Ino.

"They can't _force _me to be on a team if I don't want to be," Ino said hotly. "And I'm already a ninja! It's in my blood. What are they gonna do about it, tell me I can't use magic and beat up bad guys unless they say so? I'd like to see them try!"

Sakura took another long, deep breath. "Ino..."

Two hours later, Ino still refused to drop the idea of creating her own team.

Sakura had, however, convinced her that it would be advantageous to stay on their _actual legitimately real and not totally made up _genin teams, and that they would just have to schedule their own "training time" around that.

"Remember," Ino said as she left Sakura's house, "Team Ino meets tomorrow at 8 AM sharp! If you're late, you'll be sorry!"

Sakura wanted to say, _Actually, I think you have to meet with Team Ten tomorrow morning like normal and I'm pretty sure we decided you weren't going to up and quit. No? You don't remember hearing that? Huh, how weird._

But she didn't. Sakura had decided that although she had never actually attempted to have a debate with a brick wall, it probably would have been similar to arguing with Ino.

_And also, I'd rather be reading the next volume of Majou Shoujo, so with all due respect, Ino, maybe we can continue this conversation never._

"Y-Yeah. See you tomorrow, Ino..."


	4. Serious Business

**Chapter IV: Serious Business**

* * *

"Hurry up already!" Ino said, glaring at Sakura from over her shoulder.

With a heavy sigh, Sakura looked up to see Ino staring at her. Wasn't it enough that she had resigned herself to letting Ino drag her around Konoha? Did she really have to run everywhere too? "I'm doing my best to keep up…"

Ino didn't seem to like that answer. Instead of yelling at her again, Ino grabbed Sakura's wrist and proceeded to drag her down the path. When she saw the sign for the training grounds—and the three other people occupying the area—Sakura nearly groaned in relief.

Ino ran full-force until they reached the three figures before abruptly letting go of Sakura's wrist.

"Oh, hello, Ino," Asuma-sensei's lips curled into a smile. He didn't seem very surprised to see her. "What a surprise to see you here!"

Shikamaru and Chouji were sitting several feet away from him, in what appeared to be some sort of meditative position.

"How is Team Ino coming along?" He asked.

Sakura gave Asuma a blank look. He was taking this awfully well, wasn't he? Especially since what Ino was doing was probably grounds for being fired… or whatever it was that happened to insubordinate ninjas.

"Our team needs a place to train and all of the other training grounds are reserved," Ino said. "We're kind of in a hurry, so you guys need to leave."

Chouji's jaw drop a few inches. Well, this wasn't going to end well…

At least, that's what Sakura thought until she looked at Asuma, who just continued to smile at the two of them (even if it did look a bit forced).

"Why aren't you guys mowing lawns or something, anyway?" Ino continued. "Shouldn't you be doing missions right now?"

"Uh…" Chouji cleared his throat, "Don't you mean _we _should be doing missions..?"

"Actually," Asuma interrupted, "Shouji and Chikamaru are going over the basics of harnessing chakra."

Sakura saw Shikamaru cover his face with both hands and groan loudly.

Ino looked like she was contemplating something incredibly important. "Chakra, huh?" She said, biting her lip.

"Yeah," Shikamaru looked uncomfortable, "_Chouji_ and I could use the extra practice."

"Of course," Asuma agreed. "After all, you won't be able to learn any new jutsu without working on your chakra control first."

"Jutsu?" Ino lit up.

"You know," Asuma continued, "You and Sakura are welcome to join us if you'd like. We'd be happy to have you."

"That'd be great!" Sakura said quickly. She and Ino had no idea what they were doing. It had been two days since the formation of Team Ino, and so far, all they had learned was that training grounds had to be reserved, and that as a general rule, shinobi did not like to be ordered around by "a couple of ten-year-olds."

"Watch it," Ino grabbed her shoulder, "I'm the Team Leader, and I decide what we're going to do. This isn't a democracy."

With that, Ino turned back towards the remaining members of Team Ten. She gave Shikamaru and Chouji a good, long look before seemingly coming to a decision. "Alright, then, Asuma-sensei. I'll let you use the training grounds at the same time as Team Ino as long as you promise to teach us, too. But I'm still the team leader here, so don't get any funny ideas about bossing us around."

"That sounds reasonable," Asuma smiled at her.

What—seriously?!

"So, how do we start?"

"Please take a seat," Asuma said, gesturing towards the two males on the ground.

* * *

"Argh!" Ino spluttered, mouth full of water as she surfaced from the pond. "Why is this taking so long?!"

"Seriously…?" Shikamaru muttered under his breath. Next to him, Sakura and Chouji nodded in agreement. The three of them hadn't even gotten to water walking yet. What was Ino even complaining about?

"You're doing great_, _Ino. I haven't seen anyone make this much progress in just a few days."

"Hmph. I guess."

With that, Ino returned to the surface, immediately resuming her practice routine.

Personally, Sakura thought she was crazy, but the pace she kept _was _pretty impressive. Who knew Ino had that much stamina?

At some point, Asuma had moved to stand behind her. "And how are you things going with you, Sakura?"

"Er, well… Um…" Sakura bit her lip, glancing up at the tree in front of her with apprehension. Thank God no one here seemed to know that Sakura should have mastered this already… Kakashi-sensei must not report much to anyone.

_I guess the Land of Waves hadn't happened that long ago, so it makes sense that the other teams might be working on similar skills. Still…_

Wasn't Sakura instantly able to walk up a tree in the anime, with her perfect chakra control and all? And since when did Ino have the stamina of Naruto and Sasuke?!

Not only was her chakra control shit, but she hadn't managed to accomplish much of anything these past few days. Okay, that wasn't totally true: at one point she managed to blow a whole layer of bark off of one of the trees.

_And don't forget that one time I propelled myself off of the tree so hard I flew back into the pond. That was pretty impressive! I haven't managed to do it again, but that's beside the point, right?_

"Don't worry, Sakura," Asuma pat her on the back. "You'll probably get the hang of it."

_..Probably? That's comforting…_

"Y-yeah…" Sakura mumbled. "I think I'm going to take another break… I'm starting to get a headache."

"Again?" Asuma's brow furrowed. "You've had a headache almost every day now. Do you think you need to see a doctor?"

"Er, n-no, it's fine, really. Actually, I was wondering…" Sakura quickly changed the subject, "Are you really okay with Team Ino? It seems like you could get in trouble for this…"

"Well," Asuma said, "While it's true that this is rather unorthodox, after looking into it, as long as Ino is still participating, the situation is salvageable. As far as I know, as long as the missions assigned to our team get completed, the details are left to us."

Uh…

"So… you're okay with Ino just _not_ going on missions with you guys and telling everyone she's got her own team, then?"

"Perhaps we should think of it in a different way." Asuma gave her another empty smile. "I think it's much more sensible to let Ino have some freedom to do what she wants."

..How on earth is that supposed to be the sensible option?

"As long as Ino feels like she has some control, she seems to be more willing to work with everyone. She's even been training with us every day, just like she's supposed to. Not only that, but she's made some huge strides in her training."

_I guess that's true… But what kind of ninjas would be okay with that? Wasn't there some kind of pecking order?_

"I'm sure after some time, she'll get used to the idea of being a part of Team Ten again, and will get over whatever phase she's going through. There's no real need to go reporting her or causing needless trouble for anyone. Besides, who knows? At this rate, she might surprise us all and form her own team for real."

_WHAT!?_

"Ah, sorry," Asuma's mouth morphed into a smirk as he laughed. "I was only joking."

Joking, right…

"I think I'm ready to go home now…"

* * *

It was early in the morning, and Sakura was slowly making her way towards Training Grounds Three. As much as she liked complaining about Team Ten's rigorous routine, Sakura would have been okay with one more day of it, because she _really _wasn't ready for this.

You know, meeting with Team Seven officially for the first time.

And if that wasn't enough to make her nervous, imagining the fit Ino was going to throw if she noticed her absence was enough to send her into panic mode. Sakura "forgot" to tell Ino about having to resume her meetings with Team Seven. Ino probably would have ordered her to quit the team, anyway, and Sakura hadn't felt like trying to argue with her. It was easier to just avoid the problem. Or push it off for a later date and hope Ino didn't show up to punish her.

* * *

Sakura could feel the blood draining from her face when she got to the training grounds.

"You're late," Ino snarled, pointing an accusing finger in her direction. "Penalty!"

_The very worst crime, _Sakura sighed.

"Sakura-chan!" Naruto grinned, waving from across the field as he ran towards her, Sasuke following a few feet behind him. "It's been forever! Hey, do you know what they're doing here?"

Naruto was gesturing towards Ino. Standing behind her were Asuma, Shikamaru, and Chouji.

No, she did _not _know what they were doing here…

"Um…"

"Sorry I'm late, everyone." Kakashi-sensei said, having abruptly appeared before them in a puff of smoke.

"You should be!" Ino put both hands on her hips, "We've been waiting here for ten minutes. What's wrong with you?"

"Only ten minutes?" Naruto gaped. "That's got to be some kind of record!"

"I know, I know…" Kakashi sighed.

"I hope you know you're buying everyone lunch now," Ino continued.

"Could somebody please tell me what's going on?" Sakura finally spoke up. "I thought I was supposed to be meeting with Team Seven."

Ino was almost certainly about to spout something off about Team Ino (if the look on her face was any indication), but Asuma spoke up before she could say anything. "Ah, about that. We've decided to schedule some joint trainings with both Team Seven and Team Ten, at least for the next few days."

Ino glared.

"And Team Ino," Asuma added with a smirk.

Kakashi had an odd look on his face for a moment before it morphed back into his signature nonchalance. Naruto seemed confused, but ultimately didn't say anything, and Sasuke gave Kakashi a look Sakura couldn't decipher before ultimately dropping the subject too.

Sakura was fairly certain that everyone was crazy.

"Actually," Asuma continued, "Our team trainings might have to be put on hold." As he spoke, he pulled out a mission scroll. "Team Ten has some missions to do today, after all."

..Then what was the point of coming all the way out here?

* * *

As she watched Team Ten depart—_with _Ino in tow, mind you—Sakura had to admit, she was impressed.

She didn't think it was even possible to change Ino's mind once it was set, but Asuma had proved her wrong.

_"I know these sorts of missions are boring for you, Ino," Asuma began after having called for a brief meeting, sans Team Seven, who were now lounging on the other side of the field. Well, except for Sakura, but she was Team Ino now. Apparently. "But they're more important than you think."_

_Ino didn't look like she believed him._

_"Now, I know you don't believe me," he continued, "But there's another hidden reason behind these sorts of missions. Just looking at them, they appear to be mundane, right? But for every mission you complete, you get a mark on your record. And for every fifteen marks, your chakra pool rises by several points."_

_Shikamaru opened his mouth and then closed it without saying anything._

_"Really?"_

_"Really!" Asuma smiled. "Unfortunately, Sakura will not be able to join us. Chakra-raising missions can only be completed by three genin and a jonin instructor, so Sakura will have to do her own with Team Seven. I hope you understand."_

_Something about that definitely didn't sound right…_

* * *

With that, Team Ten left, and Sakura was finally going to get a chance to get to know the rest of her teammates. In theory, anyway…

Training with Kakashi was proving to be quite a bit different than with Asuma. He seemed to take a much more laissez-faire approach, on the whole.

For instance, all Kakashi had done in the time since Team Ten left was move from the center of the Training Grounds to a nearby bench.

Sakura wasn't sure what to say to any of them, so she waited for one of her other two teammates to crack.

"Well, now what?" Naruto finally broke.

"Huh?" Kakashi looked up from the book in his hands.

"Aren't we going to train or something?" Naruto said. "Do we have a mission too?"

"Oh, right. Train. Of course," Without looking up from his book, Kakashi waved a hand at them, "Give me 25 laps."

Both boys groaned.

"What are you waiting for? Go on, shoo!"

Laps? Seriously? Chakra training was painful enough, but now she had to run too? This was like P.E., only about ten times worse.

"Um, I…" Sakura mumbled, "I-I can't run today… I'm sick..."

"Oh, sorry to hear that," Kakashi said. "Sakura gets to sit this one out!"

Wow, that was easy.

"WHAT!? She's not sick!"

"You're kidding, right?"

Sakura gave a weak cough and shivered for good measure.

"Why are you two still standing here?" Kakashi said. "Now it's 30 laps."

Sasuke and Naruto scampered off, and Kakashi returned to his book. Which, she noticed, did not have a bright orange cover.

"What are you reading?" Sakura asked; she didn't really need to, though, because she could read the cover as clear as day: it was a thick, wordy looking text called '_The Rise of the Five Great Shinobi Nations_.' "That doesn't look like Icha Icha to me."

"Sakura, what kind of person do you take me for?" Kakashi gave a dramatic sigh. "I don't only read porn, you know…"

"R-right, of course…" So, should she just go home? Kakashi hadn't dismissed her, and she didn't want to get into trouble for not training. Or have to deal with her parents…

Sakura looked around for a moment, unsure of what to do, before reaching into her bag and pulling out her own book.


	5. Time for Some Obfuscating Stupidity

**Chapter 5: Time for Some Obfuscating Stupidity**

* * *

**Chapter V: Time for Some Obfuscating Stupidity**

* * *

It was seven in the morning, and Ino was pissed.

Much to the blonde's displeasure, the last week of training had not resulted in immediate, instantaneous progress in Ino's quest to become the Strongest Ninja to Ever Grace the Narutoverse (TM). This was unacceptable, so Ino had decided that the obvious course of action was to show up at Sakura's house before their designated training sessions to complain about it.

"And all he said was, 'Of course, Ino! What would you like to learn?' How am I supposed to know that? He's the teacher, not me!" Ino huffed. "And then he tried to make me meditate. Can you believe it? What is with everyone and meditation around here, anyway? I swear, the next person who tells me to do another set of deep breathing exercises is _dead_."

"Uh-huh..." Sakura nodded. Anxiously, she fiddled with the hem of her pajamas and took a quick glance at the clock on her wall. Ino _was _going to leave soon, wasn't she? Knowing her, she'd probably leave right before training... leaving Sakura with no time to get ready.

"Are you even listening to me?" Ino nearly shouted, and Sakura snapped back to attention.

"Huh?" Sakura stammered. "I mean, yes!"

"So, tell me some already."

Sakura stared at her. _Okay, so maybe I wasn't listening. But I definitely can't tell Ino that... she'd kill me._

It only took a few seconds for Ino's patience to wear thin. "You _do _know about jutsu, right?"

"Y-yeah, of course!" Sakura said quickly. _I was totally listening to you this whole time, Ino, I swear. _"I know all the jutsu! Like, um..."

"Is there a jutsu that will let me blow things up?" Ino interrupted. "I want to learn how to shoot fireballs."

"Yeah! I think. Maybe," Sakura paused. "Well, Sasuke can use fire release."

"What's that?"

"Um, he does some handsigns and then blows fire out of his mouth—"

Ino instantly perked up.

"But I think that's a clan jutsu—Hey, wait, where are you going?"

Ino was already halfway out the door. "I'm going to go find Sasuke."

Oh boy. "I don't think Sasuke's going to teach you that."

"I don't care what you think," Ino glared, continuing to walk out of the room.

"W-wait! There are way cooler jutsu though, and if Sasuke can use it, it can't be _that _cool because.. because he's only twelve. Right! I mean, how cool can it really be if a kid like him can do it?"

Ino finally stopped walking. "I don't know..." She said, sounding skeptical as she turned back towards Sakura. "What could be cooler than blowing fireballs out of your mouth?"

"W-well... like..."

Well, crap. Ino had a point. Blowing fire out of your mouth was pretty damned cool. Any second now, Ino was going to go walk out and harass Sasuke. Who, she noted dully, was on Team Seven. And the last thing she wanted to do was have to deal with Ino _and _Team Seven for the rest of the day. Sakura had to think of something, and fast.

What would Ino think was cool? Water walking? No, she could already do that...

"Er... water release?"

Ino crossed her arms, looking decidedly unimpressed.

"..Wind release?" Sakura looked up at Ino tentatively. Nope, still unimpressed. Okay, so maybe for sheer destructive force, not much was going to beat out fire...

Uh... What were the other elements again? Oh!

"Mokuton!" Sakura blurted out. "Yeah! Wood release is way cooler than fire release."

"It doesn't sound very cool."

"That's just because you don't know what it can do!" Sakura insisted. "Imagine being able to shoot wood out of your arms. Or make trees sprout from the ground in an instant, or even better, being able to craft entire buildings!"

"Hmmm," Ino looked calculating. "That sounds interesting. How do I learn that?"

"Oh, er, well..." Sakura froze, realizing her mistake. "It's actually more of a bloodline limit, so you can't learn it. And um, if I remember correctly, only like two people have it, so..."

"Only two people?" Ino's eyebrows shot up. "Then it must be really powerful!"

"Maybe we should talk about something else..."

"Who knows it?" Ino pressed.

"B-besides," Sakura stuttered, "It's not _that _cool. Sure, you can make tree houses and buildings and stuff.. but I mean, you can make stuff with water release too. Like, um, ponds and streams. You could hold car washes—"

"I don't care if it's a bloodline limit. I'll find a way around that later."

"What about the clone technique?" Sakura interrupted. "Clones are cool, right?"

Without saying anything, Ino placed both hands together and quickly made several handsigns. After a light puff of smoke came and dissipated, two Inos stood in front of Sakura.

"Clones are boring," Ino said in explanation. "You can't fight with them. They're not even solid."

"That kind of clone isn't solid, yeah," Sakura said, "But shadow clones are."

"Shadow clones?" Ino scrunched her nose. "Why would _shadow_ clones be solid but _regular_ clones aren't?"

"Look, the point is—"

"Wait, I can make real, living clones of myself?" Ino said excitedly. "Like more than one?" After a moment, Ino's face lit up again as a thought struck her. "You're right, you know, I do remember Naruto doing that!"

"Right," Sakura hesitantly agreed. "_Naruto_ can... because he has a lot of chakra, and because he learned the technique by reading it out of the scroll of secr—" Sakura abruptly cut herself off. Telling Ino about secret, forbidden scrolls was a very bad idea. As was this entire conversation, actually.

"Scroll?" Ino jumped on her last word. "What scroll?"

Sakura could just see it now: _"Sakura, I need you to get me that scroll. Bring it to Team Ino's meeting tomorrow. If you don't have it with you... you'll be sorry!"_

Yeah... no, that wasn't happening.

"Scroll?" Sakura repeated in a bewildered (and much practiced) tone, scrunching her eyebrows up in confusion. "Huh?"

"Don't play dumb with me," Ino narrowed her eyes and approached Sakura with slow, purposeful strides.

"Ow—no, really, I don't know what you're talking about! I got confused and I didn't—"

"Stop lying!" At this point, Ino had managed to corner Sakura and was currently grabbing her by the cuff of her pajama top. "_What _scroll? I've seen Asuma with mission scrolls before, so it makes sense that ninjas use scrolls for other things, too. Well, say something already!"

"I-I can't tell you!" Sakura blurted out, terrified as Ino lifted her up before slamming her back into the wall. "It's classified!"

That was apparently the wrong thing to say, because Ino responded by roughly flipping her over and twisting Sakura's arm behind her back.

"Ahhhgh, w-wait, please stop!" Sakura wailed, and Ino gave her arm another twist. "Okay, okay! There are scrolls... Ow, th-that have a bunch of techniques on them but Ino, they're really dangerous and we wouldn't have enough chakra for them and that's why they're—I mean, that's why they were all destroyed."

Ino was quiet for a full minute before she let go of Sakura's arm and stepped away. With a relieved groan, Sakura dropped to the floor and tentatively looked back at Ino. She was staring at her with cold eyes.

"I don't believe you," Ino said calmly before turning and walking away.

Sakura was almost afraid to ask, but... "Where are you going?"

"I'm going to find someone who isn't _completely useless _to help me find a ninja scroll," Ino said. "Basically, anyone who isn't _you_!" With that, Ino stepped out of Sakura's room and slammed the door behind her.

* * *

Sakura sighed to herself for the upteenth time, glumly looking down from her position on the roof. Below her, Sakura's two teammates were grumbling quietly to themselves as they worked. Their D-rank mission for the day? Re-paint an old, wooden fence for one of the locals. Sakura, of course, couldn't help them because she had pulled a muscle in her arm approximately thirty minutes after they had started painting the day before. Well, at least that's what she told Kakashi, who had nodded understandingly and let her off.

Also, paint fumes were _toxic, _and this _was _the second day they'd been assigned a painting mission. Sakura had come prepared to tell Kakashi all about the Sick building syndrome (SB) symptoms she was currently experiencing, but they were outside now and Kakashi hadn't asked, anyway.

"So, what's got you down?"

A few feet to her right, Kakashi was lounging comfortably next to her on the roof, book open and propped up on one knee.

"Oh..." Sakura sighed again. "It's nothing, Kakashi-sensei..."

"Hmm," He gave her a long, one-eyed stare. After a moment, he looked back at his book, shrugging to himself. "If you say so."

"It's just..." Sakura bit her lip, "What does it even mean for a person to be _useless_, anyway?"

"Well," Kakashi said, flipping a page in his book—the title of which she couldn't make out, because Kakashi had replaced the sleeve with Icha Icha Violence. "I suppose that depends on the context."

"No, it doesn't," Sakura said, her irritation seeping out. "Objects can be useless, but people? People are just people." When Kakashi didn't say anything, Sakura continued, "Okay, take a flat iron, for example. It's useful. It's got ceramic plates that heat up to over 200 Celsius, and when used properly, it makes wavy hair sleek and straight. It has a specific use and it does what it's supposed to do, which is what makes it useful."

"Mhmm," Kakashi nodded.

"But human beings don't _have _a purpose. At least not one that we know of. We just sort of wander around and continue on the species, I guess."

"Ah, the meaning of life. The ultimate question. Why are we here? What's our purpose?"

"Well, yeah..." Sakura mumbled. _That wasn't exactly where I was going with that, but..._

"Looking at it from a purely biological perspective, one could argue that our purpose is to procreate."

"Um, sure..." _Could he maybe not smile while he says that, and maybe put down Icha Icha?_ _I know it's just the cover, but it's still pretty creepy..._

"You _do _realize that you're arguing semantics, though, Sakura?" Kakashi said.

What? "No, I'm not."

"Try changing the word 'useful' to 'helpful.' It's perfectly normal to describe a person as helpful or unhelpful depending on the situation. We generally tend to use useful to describe inanimate objects or information, and helpful to describe actions. You can say someone is being useful too and have it mean the same thing."

"Well, fine," Sakura said. "So when would you describe a person as _helpful_? When you're helping an old lady carry her groceries home?"

"That's a bit more literal than I was going for," Kakashi said, scratching his chin. "How about this? You have three employees. The first employee is a slacker, the second meets the job requirements, and the third goes above and beyond the call of duty. Let's say maybe he puts in more hours at work, and takes on more responsibility than he needs to."

"Okay..."

"One might say that the third employee is more helpful than the others," Kakashi finished. "One _might _even say that the third employee is more useful."

Kakashi took note of Sakura's quickly darkening expression—and promptly ignored it. "And on a completely different note," he continued, "If your entire argument hinges on the assertion that only objects can be deemed useful or useless, you're forgetting one very important fact."

"Oh, and what's _that_, Kakashi-sensei?"

"We aren't humans. We're ninjas," Kakashi stated. "And as you're well-aware, ninjas are tools of the village, therefore it is perfectly reasonable to describe them as useful or useless in terms of their contribution to the village."

Judging from her frown, this piece of knowledge did not set well with Sakura.

"Take this mission, for example," Kakashi continued, against his better judgment, "Sasuke and Naruto are down there hard at work, completing a task assigned to us by the village. I'd say it's fair to describe them as useful. You, on the other hand, are lounging about on the roof. As entertaining as our discussions tend to be and as far as the village is concerned, you, Sakura, are rather useless by comparison."

When Sakura said nothing, he added, "Technically speaking, of course."

"Sakura is _not useless!"_ Sakura yelled out, her face flushing. "Sure, she might not have a Sharingan or a ridiculous chakra pool or be able to summon a billion shadow clones, but she had some of the best scores at the Academy and she's got amazing chakra control and you don't see Sasuke or Naruto punching people through walls, do you!? And do you think learning medical ninjutsu is easy? Because it's _not_!"

"Interesting," Kakashi said.

"And what about _you_?!" Sakura turned on him. "I don't see you doing anything useful!"

"Of course I am," Kakashi said evenly. "I'm supervising."

Sakura retort died on her lips as she stared at him, dumbfounded.

"I also taught you the meaning of the term useful," he added.

Sakura abruptly stood up. "I'm done training for the day," She said to no one in particular before stalking off of the roof.

Kakashi didn't stop her; he only watched her with a thoughtful expression until her figure disappeared.

* * *

Sakura was halfway home before she calmed down long enough to realize her mistake.

Oh god, how the hell was she supposed to explain that? Kakashi probably thought she was _crazy_. Cursing to herself, Sakura whirled around and started running back towards the property where Team Seven was currently stationed.

First Ino, and now Kakashi—if only there was a way to go back in time. Alternatively, Sakura would also be okay with curling up in a ball and dying. That was it: from now on, she wasn't saying _anything _to _anyone_. It was time to play dumb.

Sakura dashed down the main road in town, pausing only when she saw Asuma out of the corner of her eye. That was odd—it seemed too early for Team Ten to be done for the day.

_Unless Ino made another scene? _Sakura instantly deflated. Great, that was just what she needed. She should probably go talk to him...

Sakura watched as Asuma waved at someone she didn't recognize before nonchalantly entering one of the side alleyways. Sakura waited a few seconds before following him into the alley—only to discover that it wasn't an alley so much as a dead-end between buildings.

Curiously, Sakura watched as Asuma kept walking with long, purposeful strides. No one else seemed to be there. What was he doing, anyway?

"Aha, there it is," She heard Asuma say to himself.

Uncomfortable with the silence, Sakura opened her mouth to call out and announce her presence, but before she got a chance to, Asuma disappeared into thin air.


	6. Rule of Three

**Chapter VI: Rule of Three**

* * *

_"K-Kaka-sensei?" _Sakura called out tentatively, making sure her voice was higher-pitched than normal and added a hint of a tremble for good measure. She wrung her hands together and widened her eyes, trying to look as unassuming and innocent as possible.

It was the sort of image meant to inspire an innate sense of protectiveness, the desire to rescue and shield from all harm. One wouldn't dare utter a harsh word, lest the dam she was just barely holding back would burst, and if the waterworks started, it would be over for him. What sort of cold-hearted monster would want to make an innocent, young girl, naive the cold realities of the world, cry?

After all, the cute-but-dumb routine _always_ worked. People didn't ask her questions they thought she couldn't answer, and half of the time, if she was cute enough, they forgot they even asked them in the first place.

Unfortunately, this ploy only worked if the target was looking at her, which Kakashi was currently not doing. Sakura wasn't even sure he had heard her to begin with, since his only reaction was to turn the page of the book he had his eyes glued to.

"Um..." Sakura tried again. "About the other day..."

As her mind flashed over the events of yesterday, Sakura's voice caught in her throat. Sakura lost track of time as she had dumbly stood in the alley, staring at the spot where Asuma had vanished. Her mind went through all of the various jutsu she was familiar with— which, to her dawning horror, wasn't very many. Body Flicker, perhaps? _Yes, that must be it! Asuma just body flickered straight into a solid wall, with no smoke or anything. You're a genius, Sakura. _And seeing as Asuma had never been shown to know anything about space-time ninjutsu (as far as she knew, anyway), she was back at square one.

Between Asuma, Ino, Kakashi and her own stupidity, Sakura had gone home after that, having had enough for one day. And realistically, what could she possibly say to Kakashi to convince him she wasn't crazy?

That was the million dollar question.

"Yes, Sakura?" Kakashi finally spoke, still not looking at her, much to her ever increasing frustration. When Sakura said nothing, he flipped another page of his book. Was he actually reading, or was it all for show?

"Huh? O-Oh," Sakura took a deep breath. "I wanted to apologize for acting so odd yesterday..."

"Did you now?" Kakashi flipped the page again. _Okay_, Sakura glared at the back of his head, _he's definitely not even reading that thing._

"Yes," Sakura said, annoyed.

"I hadn't noticed."

"People don't normally talk about themselves in the third person," Sakura pointed out.

"Ah," Kakashi nodded. "That's true. Normal people usually don't."

"I-" Sakura stopped. "What's _that _supposed to mean?"

"What's what supposed to mean?"

Kakashi flipped another page.

"Stop doing that!" Sakura reached out to grab his book, but managed to stop herself. Not that she would have been able to swipe it from him, anyway.

"Stop doing what?"

"Reading!" She barked out, feeling like an idiot as soon as the words left her mouth. "Th-that is, I mean, it's humanly impossible to be reading that fast. You're just doing it to be annoying."

Finally, Kakashi lowered his book. He looked over his shoulder at her, regarding her carefully. "That's not true," With one hand, Kakashi tapped on the forehead protector covering his eye. "Sharingan, remember?"

"You really expect me to believe that you use your Sharingan to read a book that you've read a thousand times already?" By this point, she was having a hard time keeping the attitude from seeping into her voice. So much for the fragile flower act. "If that even _is _Icha Icha. Don't think I haven't noticed your cover swaps."

Sakura could make out the hint of a frown from underneath is mask, but Kakashi quickly schooled his expression. "Sure I would. What else would I use the Sharingan for in my spare time?"

Unbelievable. Why were they even _having _this conversation, anyway?

"I'm going home," Sakura stood up, and left training in a huff for the second time in as many days.

"See you tomorrow, Sakura-chan!" Kakashi called out after her.

* * *

"Amazing!" Asuma nodded approvingly. "You really are a natural at this."

"Why wouldn't I be?" Ino waved off the praise, irritation seeping into her voice. "Were you expecting me to be terrible or something? You shouldn't take me lightly."

"I simply mean that you're continuing to improve faster than I would have anticipated," Asuma amended, his good humor unwavering.

Nothing Ino said or did seem to be able to wipe the smile from his face.

The same could not be said for her teammates, however. Today was Team Seven's day off, which for Sakura meant it was a Team Ten-Team Ino training day. You see, Team Ino didn't _have _days off, and if Sakura was ever caught disobeying direct orders from her superior, there would be hell to pay.

Much to Sakura's surprise, her days with Team Seven had turned out to be a Godsend, of sorts. Other than Kakashi's aggravating laziness and Naruto and Sasuke's complete disregard for her existence in general, nobody seemed to care much what she did, so long as she showed up. And outside of that? Nagging from Ino, the constant invasion of privacy from her parents... Oh, what Sakura wouldn't give to have some control over her life again.

"You shouldn't really be that surprised," Ino said. "I calculated it out and based off of the amount of missions we've gone on, my chakra pool should be at least 50 points higher by now."

"That's a good point," Asuma nodded.

For her part, Sakura had spent most of the day watching Team Ten like a hawk. The more she observed, the more suspicious she became. Outside of an amusing incident where Ino had attempted to force Shikamaru into teaching her the Nara's signature Shadow Possession Jutsu (which had ended in tears; Sakura's tears, that is), nothing seemed to be amiss during the day's training.

And that was just it. Ino was on a roll today. She still hadn't forgiven Sakura for— well, Sakura wasn't quite sure, but from judging from the amount of glaring directed her way, it must have been something terrible.

Ino was just being Ino— and by "being Ino", Sakura really meant "nothing like Ino whatsoever."

At least, Sakura _thought _she wasn't anything like the real Ino. Ino_ was_ out of character, wasn't she? Part 1 Ino was loud, bossy, and arrogant. Truth be told, maybe this Ino wasn't all that different from her Naruto-counterpart.

Except for one very significant detail.

"What did you say?" Ino whipped her head towards Asuma. "What do you mean there are _only _four other shinobi countries?"

_That about covers it, _Sakura thought.

"I-Ino!" Chouji barked, sounding scandalized. "Are you serious?"

Shikamaru only sighed heavily before returning to his water walking.

"Well, that's not exactly true," Asuma said. "There are more than that, but only five are counted among the Five Great Shinobi Countries. Each one has its own civilian government, of course, but the most powerful Hidden Villages are located there, as well."

"But we're the _most _powerful, right?" Ino said. "I don't want to be stuck here doing dumb missions in a village that's just going to get run over by stronger ninja eventually. And besides, real heroes don't normally sit around in town doing nothing all day. They're usually out exploring the world, finding people to save."

"Interesting point, Ino, and a perfect transition back to our original topic," Asuma said, waving the scroll in his hand. "It's nothing too exciting, but it seems we've been selected for a delivery mission outside Konoha. So, how do you feel about heading to the Land of Rice Fields?"

Ino stopped her training in favor of staring at Asuma with a deadpan expression. "That is the dumbest name for a country I've ever heard in my life."

"So it is," Asuma smiled.

* * *

Now, a week ago, Sakura wouldn't have given this exchange another thought. However...

There was simply _no way _that nobody noticed how bizarre Ino's behavior was. What about her parents? If Ino acted like that at home, she'd be a goner. Sakura had no idea what Ino's home life was like, and she supposed it was possible that her parents were as oblivious as Sakura's were, but Ino also happened to come from a clan of mind readers.

_And we don't have any memories of Sakura or Ino's lives. That could be disastrous..._

With this thought in mind, Sakura had shown up at Team Ino's usual meeting place with an agenda. (For the most part, this location was 'wherever Team Ten was training for the day, only a little earlier, or at lunch, or after dinner.) They didn't really accomplish anything outside of Ino barking orders at her, for the most part.

Speaking of which, where was Ino, anyway?

_At least I have a bit more time to think about what I'm going to say, _Sakura thought. _To start with, I need to warn her about the possibility of her mind being read. If it's not too late, that is... Ah, there she is_!

Ino was walking towards her, seemingly distracted. She wasn't even glaring at her, which was a real treat. Maybe this _was _a good time to talk, after all.

"Hey Ino," Sakura started, "There's something I wanted to talk to you about."

"Huh?" Ino glanced up, now only a good ten feet away. She stopped walking, and proceeded to survey the area. "Oh, sure. Whatever."

"I was just thinking... How are your parents doing?"

Ino brushed her off. "They're fine."

"I mean," Sakura continued, "Have they noticed anything weird about you, or have they started acting strangely, or anything like that?"

"No," Ino gave her a look. "Why would they?"

_Really, Ino? Really? _"Well, you _do _come from a family of mind readers."

There was a beat of silence.

"WHAT?!"

Sakura swore she saw birds fly out from the nearest tree line. "Y-You know, that Mind Body Switch Technique. Ino knows it, so you should too— "

"I can't believe I forgot about that! Why didn't you remind me that I could read people's minds? How _do_ I do that? You better tell me how," Ino started walking towards her, and the smile on her face was not at all comforting. "Hey, I want to try it out on you first!"

"What— no! Get away from me!"

"I'm not asking you, I'm _telling _you! Hey! Where the hell do you think you're going?"

"I-I just forgot that there's something terribly important I have to get to—"

"— and you're not allowed to leave team meetings until I dismiss you!"

"My mother's sick and— "

"Hey, there you are!" Ino's frown immediately shifted into a grin. She was looking over Sakura's shoulder; someone must have just entered the training grounds. Without a second thought, Ino rushed past Sakura, nearly knocking her to the floor in the process.

"I was waiting for you! You're late, you know."

Turning, Sakura looked over to see Ino dragging another person by the arm towards her. She looked like she was in pain.

Poor girl.

"This is Hinata," Ino said excitedly. "She's going to be our newest team member!"

Um. What?

"She is?" Sakura's voice cracked.

Ino had Hinata by the shoulders and was shoving her towards Sakura. "Just look at her! She's perfect."

Hinata stumbled forward, but managed to correct herself before she ended up in a heap at Sakura's feet. Quietly, the girl raised her head, briefly making eye contact with Sakura. There was something in her gaze that left Sakura feeling disoriented - she got the strangest feeling that Hinata wasn't looking at her, so much as the space in front of her.

"I found her wandering around town the other day. Isn't she adorable?" Ino continued. "Of course, I immediately remembered her from the show. She's that girl who passes out every time she sees Naruto walking by. She's totally cute, and she's the perfect candidate to round out our ensemble!"

The "show?" Oh god.

"_Ino!"_ Sakura hissed. "Y-you can't say that sort of thing in front of—" Sakura stopped, looking back at Hinata. She was still staring blankly at the two of them, seemingly unphased by their discussion. If anything, Sakura could have sworn she looked... well, bored. _ " .._And anyway, you can't just kidnap random people and force them to be on your team!" Okay, so maybe Ino _had _managed to force _her _to be on the team, but any regular person wouldn't stand for that sort of thing.

"What are you talking about? I didn't force her! She's here because she wants to be, right Hinata?"

"Correct," Hinata said.

"I was just thinking," Ino began again, "That we can't be a real ninja team unless we have more members. After all, every other team has at least four members, and we only have two. Besides, there's not much point in having a Team Leader and only one team member, is there?"

Sakura stared at her.

"Anyway, I haven't decided if we need four members yet. After all, most all-female anime ensembles have either three members, or five members, or something like that. I mean, just look at Magic Knight Rayearth, or Sailor Moon."

"..We're ninjas, not magical girls," Sakura said in disbelief.

"There are _three _genin and _one _jonin teacher on a team, right?" Ino continued as if Sakura hadn't said anything, "And since we don't need a teacher, it would make sense to just have three members. Haven't you heard of the Rule of Three?"

Sakura looked up over Ino's head, staring forlornly up at the sky.

"Hinata, you've heard of the Rule of Three, haven't you?"

Hinata nodded.

Sakura felt her jaw dropping.

"Hey," Ino put a hand on Sakura's shoulder, giving her a shake. "What were you going on about earlier?"

"Nothing," Sakura said. "It was nothing."

"That's good, because there's something else I wanted to show you."

Sakura tentatively glanced at Ino—she was grinning like a maniac. This couldn't be good.

"You remember that _secret forbidden scroll_ you wouldn't tell me about?"

Dread washing over her, Sakura took a step back. "Um… no."

"Well, I ran all around town yesterday trying to figure out where they were, and guess what? I found out!" Ino said excitedly. "All I had to do was find Naruto and he led me right to it."

Naruto led her to it? Since when had they even spoken?

"But that's not the best part."

The best part..?

"The best part," Ino said, taking a battle stance as she spoke, "is that now I can do _this_."

With that, Sakura watched in awe as wooden vines came shooting straight out of her hands.


	7. Mokuton

**A/N: Some revision of earlier chapters has taken place (primarily in chapters 3 and 6). Just giving those of you who have read earlier chapters a heads up. ****Didn't want to delete and repost, though, since notifications can get annoying.**

* * *

**Chapter VII: Mokuton**

* * *

Once upon a time, there was an unfairly overpowered ninja named Hashirama. Unlike all of the other super powerful ninjas who could do things like run around at supersonic speeds (maybe), teleport and replace themselves with inanimate objects (or something), and morph into other people at will, he could do something even cooler: the Nature Transformation, Wood Release. Wood Release, or Mokuton, happened to be a kekkai genkai that was completely unique to Hashirama, and had only been acquired by others through manipulation of his DNA (and never at the same level of mastery).

To be honest, Sakura didn't really understand the way Nature Transformation worked very well. Supposedly, there were Five Elements, with each element being strong against one and weak against another. Although each ninja has a primary affinity towards a certain elemental nature, other elements could be mastered if a ninja was skilled enough and had enough free time on their hands. She also knew that advanced elements, like lava release, ice release, and wood release, were simply a combination of two different basic elements, and that they could only be done by those who possessed a kekkai genkai, or bloodline limit.

So, Sakura was understandably confused when Ino proudly showed off her newfound ability to use Mokuton.

"Isn't this so cool?" Ino grinned, watching excitedly as smaller branches began sprouting off of the thicker wood.

"That's... That's Mokuton," Sakura said dumbly.

"Yep! I bet you're jealous, huh?" Ino laughed. "I knew I was going to find something neat to learn in those scrolls. I can't believe you weren't going to tell me about them."

"This isn't possible," Sakura could feel the cold sweat on the back of her neck become more apparent as her shock wore off, "Mokuton is a bloodline technique. You can't learn it from scroll."

"But I _did _learn it from the scroll," Ino stated, gesturing with her hands (which, incidentally, did not work out very well when you had wood shooting out of them). "How else do you explain these bad boys?"

"It's impossible," Sakura repeated.

"Well, obviously it's not. I found a scroll, it had some writing in it with some handsigns, I copied them, and afterwards, I could do this!"

"You're not even using handsigns! How does that make any sense?"

That seemed to stop Ino, but only for a moment. Ino had a puzzled expression on her face, which quickly morphed into irritation. "How should I know? Who cares?" Ino said. "Maybe doing those seals cast some kind of spell that gave me the ability to use wood release indefinitely. Yeah, that must be it!"

"Wood Release is a _bloodline limit_," Sakura insisted. "That means you have to inherit it—like genes! It's something you're born with, that's ingrained into your DNA. It's like Sasuke's Sharingan. When he developed it, it didn't just appear out of thin air! The potential was always there—he just hadn't learned how to access it yet."

"Whatever," Ino said, rolling her eyes. "I'm gonna go practice. Asuma said the exams are coming up, and I have to get ready. I'll blow everyone away now!"

Sakura froze—shit. The Chunin Exams?

"You don't have to train with us this time, though. Sakura is supposed to lose anyway, and since you don't have any cool new abilities, I wouldn't even bother if I were you. I'll see you later." With a wave, Ino left Hinata and Sakura standing in the middle of the training field.

"Did... did that really happen? Is this really happening?" Sakura pinched herself. "Did you see that, Hinata?"

Hinata stared at her for a long moment; finally, she nodded. "Yes."

Sakura wondered, briefly, if it was normal for Hinata to be so calm; unfortunately for her, her mind was racing and all she could really think was, "Oh god. Ino is going to murder everyone in the Chunin Exams with Mokuton."

"Possibly," Hinata said.

* * *

_This is crazy._

Ino. Mokuton. It was just… unthinkable. What… how… why, god, _why_?

She had to get her hands on that scroll. If Ino was telling the truth, that was one dangerous piece of paper. Was it the same one Naruto had learned his shadow clone technique from? You know—the one he just up and decided to steal one night from the (supposedly) most powerful person in the village?

Unfortunately, Sakura's handsigns and her general knowledge of scrolls was lacking. She obviously couldn't talk to Ino about this…

"Kakashi-sensei. Of course."

"Hmm?" The man in question was peeking out at her, masked nose barely visible from underneath his book. "Yes, Sakura?"

"N-nothing," Sakura stammered out, shifting her focus onto Naruto and Sasuke, who were standing off to the side. She couldn't bring it up in front _of them_. No, she'd just have to ask him about it later, perhaps while her two teammates were busy with a mission. And really, Kakashi was the perfect person to talk to about this, too! He knew Yamato and everything_! Genius, Sakura! _Now all she had to do was figure out a way to work her question into the conversation without making him suspicious.

Of course, by now Ino might have already decided to make a treehouse in the middle of her front yard, making discretion on Sakura's part an exercise in futility.

"Oh, by the way," Kakashi said, quite rudely interrupting her train of thought, "Here are the applications for the Chunin Exams. You know what these are, right?"

Sasuke nodded, somehow managing to look both intrigued and completely disinterested at the same time. Naruto, on the other hand, became so overwhelmed with excitement that he tackled Kakashi (much to the latter's dismay).

"Oh, that's good." Kakashi smiled, "You might want to sign them now, because they're due by 3pm today."

"W-wait, what?" Sakura's jaw dropped. "What do you mean TODAY?!"

Weren't they supposed to get their applications _days_ in advance?!

"Yep," Kakashi said evenly. "I set them on my desk and must have forgotten about them. Sorry about that."

"That's not—what about," Sakura said shakily, "What about Gaara? Yeah! That's right! We haven't even met up with Gaara yet!"

"That happened days ago," Sasuke said. "How did you find out about that?"

"What?!"

"Hey, that's right!" Naruto perked up. "You ran into those crazy sand people too, Sakura?"

"No, I…" Sakura stammered, "I mean… wait, when did you meet Gaara?"

"Umm.… Naruto scratched his head. "I don't know. I think you went home early that day."

"Yeah," Sasuke glared at her. "You were _sick_."

Sakura felt her face flush. She _was _feeling under the weather. He didn't need to look at her like that… "B-but aren't we supposed to be tested by Iruka first?" _That did happen, right? Wait, was that anime only? I can't remember!  
_  
"Anyway," Kakashi continued, completely ignoring her comment about Iruka, "If you feel ready and decide you want to take the exams this year, just sign the application and show up at Room 301 at the academy…" Kakashi glanced up at the sky, "..in about five hours."

"You can't be serious!" Sakura burst out. She saw Kakashi physically deflate as she spoke—apparently, Kakashi must have thought her outburst was finished. "I'm—I mean, we're not nearly ready for the exams!"

At that, Sasuke folded his arms in irritation. "Tch. Speak for yourself."

"Yeah, Sakura!" Naruto chimed in. "I'm totally ready for this! Just bring on those stupid Sand ninja—I'll show 'em!"

Next to her, Kakashi sighed. He must have taken pity on her, or perhaps finally fell prey to her well-practiced puppy dog eyes. "Look, Sakura. If you don't feel ready, you don't have to participate. It's voluntary."

"B-but," Oh no… it was happening again. "I-I… I can't just—" She could feel her eyes water, threatening to spill over as her chest filled with some awful, unnamed emotion. Sakura tried desperately to shove it back.

"You can always take it next year," Kakashi added. "Nobody will—"

"I don't know anything about anything and five days from now they're going to find my corpse hidden in the bushes in the Forest of Death! I'm.. I'm going _to die!_" She wailed, and then promptly burst into tears.

"She's right," Sasuke said. "She probably will."

"There, there," Kakashi said lamely, patting her on the head. Sakura only cried harder. "You're not going to die. Why don't you just try it, and uh, if things end up going particularly bad, you can always opt out. Until then… I just remembered I left a load of laundry in the wash. Good luck with the exams!"

* * *

When Kakashi left, it didn't take long for the rest of her team to vacate the premises, too. Naruto seemed uncomfortable leaving her behind at first, but the blonde had quickly gotten used to her crying spells. He gave some lighthearted words of encouragement before running off, lost in his own world and giddy with excitement at the chance to compete in the exams.

"Sakura. We need to talk."

Sakura jolted at the sound of Sasuke's voice, startled by the interruption. She thought everyone had left her there. And what had he said—something about talking? She wasn't so good at that, these days.

Sniffling, Sakura looked up at him. "Um.. Okay…"

"What is going on with you?"

Sakura wasn't sure how to respond to that, so she said nothing.

"Don't think I haven't noticed," Sasuke said, his eyes narrowing. "You haven't been acting like yourself at all."

"I.…" Sakura bit her lip. "I don't know what you're talking about." Sasuke's glare intensified, and Sakura shuddered. "Kakashi-sensei would have noticed if something was weird, and he thinks everything's fine."

"Kakashi-sensei is the definition of weird," Sasuke countered. "So that doesn't mean anything. It doesn't change the fact that you haven't been acting like yourself. You and Ino are usually fighting, but now you're hanging around each other all the time like you're best friends again."

"Well… I wouldn't exactly call us _best friends_…"

"And you haven't been helping us at all on missions. Kakashi just lets you get away with it, and you haven't—" Sasuke fumbled over his words; Sakura could have sworn she saw him blushing as he spoke, "—you haven't been flirting or asking me to hang out at all lately."

And here she thought Sasuke hadn't been paying a lick of attention to her…

"Whatever's going on, it needs to stop," Sasuke continued. "This isn't a game. You saw what happened to Zabuza, to Haku. We're ninja. If you aren't cut out for training, or for fighting, then maybe you should just quit."

"I-I know that." Sakura gulped. She could feel tears welling up again. "I do want to, but... I'm just not very good at it..."

"How can you get good at something if you never even try? " When Sasuke caught sight of the tears starting to flow down Sakura's cheeks, he let out a deep breath. "Listen. You heard Kakashi-sensei. He recommended you, but he really shouldn't have. If I were you, I wouldn't take the test."

"What?" Sasuke's statement managed to shock her out of her crying fit. She waited for him to continue, but Sasuke seemed to be done talking.

"No you—you don't understand, Sasuke. I _have _to take the test."

Sasuke raised an eyebrow, disbelief evident in his gaze.

"If one of us doesn't take it, then our team is disqualified."

"What?" Sasuke seemed genuinely shocked. "How do you know that?"

"Just trust me, okay? It's the truth. This is the final part of the test. If we're not ready to enter as a team, we can't take it at all."

He was quiet for a long time before he spoke again. "You're going to fail, you know that, don't you?"

Sakura said nothing.

"I didn't come this far to be held back by someone who can't even do a basic mission without faking sick. If what you're saying is true, we're lucky Kakashi-sensei recommended us at all…"

Truth be told... Sakura was hoping that he wouldn't have. It would have solved so many problems.

"You can do better than this. So don't screw up." With that, Sasuke walked off, leaving her alone with her thoughts.


	8. Ino Senju

**Chapter VIII: Ino Senju  
**

* * *

"Sakura, Come here! You've gotta see this!"

Famous last words, Sakura thought as Ino grabbed her arm and proceeded to drag her off to God knows where.

Again.

Normally, Sakura would suffer through this treatment without putting up much of a fight, but she was sort of in a time crunch. "I-Ino!" She hissed. "Do you realize what time it is? The Chunin Exams—"

"Of _course_ I know what time it is," Ino said, yanking her arm harder. "Look, I was thinking about what you said earlier." When Sakura didn't respond immediately, Ino elaborated. "You know, about the blood lines!"

Oh... Had Ino actually been listening to her that time? Sakura could feel a tendril of hope tentatively blossoming in her chest.

"The more I thought about it, the more I realized that you might be onto something. After all, I guess the anime _did _make a big deal about them." _Yes, yes! _Sakura cheered inwardly. Ino was finally thinking critically, dare she even say it, acknowledging the laws of the Narutoverse! _Maybe we're not totally screwed after all!_

"So I figured there must be _some_ reason why I was able to learn Mokuton from a scroll. And then I realized something!" Ino's enthusiasm was nearly palpable. "You know how you said Sasuke didn't just_learn _his Sharingan, but actually just unlocked the ability to use it? Maybe the same thing happened to me. Maybe I've _always _had the potential to use Wood Release and reading that scroll just unlocked it for me!"

"Um.…" ...no. _I don't think so, Ino.  
_  
"It makes perfect sense!" Ino said excitedly, stopping for a moment to grab Sakura's shoulders and give her a good shake. "I've been trying to figure out why I got stuck in Ino's body for a while now. I mean, she's not even a _main character_."

"Why would you even _expect_ to be a main character—"

"So obviously it must be because Ino's secretly really powerful!"

Sakura sighed. "Or m_aybe_ you just ended up in Ino because your personalities were similar?"

"Don't be an idiot. That reason is completely dumb," Ino glared. "And there's no way it was random."

"W-well, I don't see why not," Sakura said. "Not everything has to have some special reason behind it. I mean, why did we end up here right before the start of the Chunin Exams?" Sakura asked. "Wouldn't it have made more sense for us to show up at the start of the series?"

"No way," Ino dismissed, scoffing at the mere thought. "Everything before the start of the Chunin Exams was completely boring. This is when things start to get interesting, so obviously it makes perfect sense for us to show up here."

"Technically, Ino, we showed up a few weeks before—"

"—to give us time to train, dummy!"

"I... I guess that makes sense…"

To Sakura's relief, Ino had led them straight to the Academy. Instead of entering, she turned the corner, leading them both towards the back of the building. Her grin widened substantially when she caught sight of the two figures waiting for them ahead.

"Hey, Ino!" Naruto grinned back at her. He was waving a scroll energetically in the air. Next to him, Sasuke stood staring dully at the floor in front of him with his arms folded, looking decidedly unimpressed.

_Why are they hiding in the shadows back there? _

"Aha! There you are!" Ino broke into a sprint, dragging Sakura along with her. "Did you bring it with you?"

_Better yet, what is Ino doing meeting with my teammates without me?!  
_

"Of course!"

"Sakura, you're not going to believe this. Get ready for it." Ino let out a deep breath. "I'm not actually a Yamanaka."

Sakura stared at her, her face quite blank. She noticed Sasuke do the same.

"No, _really_," Ino insisted. "Come on. Bloodline limit, remember? It makes sense, doesn't it? I had my suspicions earlier, you know, so I figured, what if there was some kind of secret conspiracy going on? Konoha has all kinds of those, so it's not like it'd be out of the ordinary. And," —Ino swiped the papers out of Naruto's hands —"I have the documents to prove it!"

"What kind of documents exactly?" Sasuke said, voice suspicious.

"I'm _getting there_, God." Ino glared at him, clearly annoyed with the interruption. "So anyway! Earlier Naruto and I snuck into the Hokage's private chambers, you know, just to see what we could find. I wasn't really sure what to look for exactly, but I just followed my intuition and it totally paid off! You wouldn't _believe _the things that old guy keeps in his desk, Sakura."

"Wait, hold up." Sakura stopped her. "Are you saying that you just walked right into the Hokage's office in broad daylight and stole a bunch of private documents?" Sakura stared at them both skeptically. "With _him?_ Er, no offense, Naruto."

Ino laughed. "Naruto's been evading ANBU since he was in diapers. Of _course _he can. How do you think he got that forbidden scroll at the beginning of the series?"

"Series?"

"W-well," Sakura stammered, "I thought that was more a throw-away gag, to be honest—"

"It's _because _Naruto's actually one of the smartest kids in our year," Ino said decisively. "He's not nearly as dumb as he pretends to be."

"I'm not?" Naruto's eyes widened; a second later, his face flushed as he realized what he just implied. "I-I mean, yeah! That's right! I'm totally smart and the best in class and everything!"

"Oh _my god_." Sasuke groaned. "Can we go now?"

"I could have graduated any time I wanted to!"

"Exactly!" Ino cheered him on. "But you didn't want anyone to catch on. It would have been dangerous, with you having that fox demon inside of you and all. People might've decided you were a threat, and who _knows _what would have happened to you then. It's a lot easier to blend into the crowd by pretending to an idiot, right?"

"Yeah! That's right!" Naruto gushed. "Wow, Ino, I didn't realize you were so cool!"

"Of course I'm cool," Ino said. "I'm a Senju, after all."

Sakura heard herself let out a squeak.

"What?" Let me see that," Sasuke snapped, grabbing the documents out of Ino's hands. Tentatively, Sakura snuck up behind him, her eyes greedily scanning over the contents.

_"The contents of this document include the consent to adoption, as well as the acknowledgement of said consent, and are governed by the Konoha statutes under which this proceeding is initiated. In the matter of the closed adoption of one Ino Senju, such provisions have been designed to ensure protection of all parties, to prevent unnecessary trauma and separation, and to facilitate bonding of the family unit in support the decision of the Yamanaka clan to take custody of the child in question."_

..What the hell..

_"I, Tsunade Senju, the mother of Ino Senju, hereby consent to her adoption by Inoichi Yamanaka and_—_"_

"TSUNADE?!" Sakura shrieked. "Are... Are you kidding me? Tsunade's like 60 years old!"

"Senju clan?" Sasuke said, eyeing Ino suspiciously. "Isn't that the clan of the First Hokage?"

"And why would the Hokage leave decade-old adoption papers lying around his office?!"

"That's right!" Ino said, ignoring Sakura's outburst. "He's only person to ever be able to use Mokuton, too, so of course it makes sense that I'd be related to him. It's the only possible explanation. After all, once you've eliminated the impossible, whatever's left must be true!"

Sakura cradled her head in her hands, mumbling incoherently to herself. "This has to be some kind of joke."

"So you're _not _related to the Yamanakas?" Sasuke said. "At all? Something about this doesn't seem right," Sasuke's brow was furrowed now, and Sakura could see the wheels turning behind Sasuke's eyes. Unfortunately, whatever dawning insight was about to reach him was shut down as he opted to shake his head in annoyance instead. "Tch. Whatever, I can't deal with this right now. You can brag about your secret heritage on your own time."

Naruto scratched his head, looking back and forth between Ino and the documents as Sasuke handed them back to her. Ino claimed Naruto had accompanied her earlier, but he was staring at the wad of papers as if he was seeing them for the first time. "Uh... I don't really understand what's going on…"

"What's going on?" Sakura laughed. "I'll tell you what's—"

"I don't _care _what's going on." Sasuke said. "I can't believe I let you guys drag me out here. If we're disqualified for being late—"

"So if the Yamanakas aren't your parents…" Naruto said slowly. "Then that means you've never met _your_ real parents either." Naruto's voice took on a bittersweet tone. "Well, at least you know one of them is alive. I don't even know who my real parents are."

Ino's eyes lit up. "Maybe we're related!"

"_No!" _Sakura nearly shouted. "Definitely not! Oh, look at that. Time to head down to Room 301!"

"_Finally_," Sasuke grumbled.


	9. Data Rewrite

**A/N: I can't respond to guest reviews, so: Gosh, spoilers, guys! (Jokingly said!) :P **

* * *

**Chapter IX: Data Rewrite**

* * *

Here they were: the Chunin Exams, arguably one of the most engaging arcs of the series. After all, it was the arc that further cemented the Team Seven bond and fully introduced the rest of what would later be referred to as the Konoha 11.

Really, though, the beginning of the exams wasn't all that interesting. Or important. At least, that's what Sakura told herself.

"There it is!" Ino grinned triumphantly as she caught sight of the entrance to Room 301. There was already a crowd at the door, and what looked like two kids guarding the entrance. But really, who cared about them? Ino certainly didn't.

"Hyaaaah!"

Izumo and Kotetsu barely had time to register what was happening before they were both flung out of the way. With one well-practiced flying jump kick, the door swung open, and Ino rushed through, leaving the rest of the genin behind.

Team Guy—Neji, Rock Lee, and Tenten—stared dumbly after Ino's slowly disappearing form, unsure of what to make of her. Sakura considered stopping and, well, at least introducing herself, but…

"Ngh! Ino!" Sakura cried out, chasing after her. "We're supposed to go to the _third floor_! Come back here!"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Ino shouted, her voice echoing down the hall. "This _IS _the third floor! What are you waiting for—come on already!"

"This is the _second floor_! They just the genjutsu'd the sign! Don't you remember anything?!"

Far behind them both, Sasuke frowned at the implication.

"Oh yeah!" A pause. "Of course I knew that."

(Somehow, Ino managed to backtrack and rush past the entire crowd without even a hint of embarrassment. Sakura felt it acutely for the both of them.)

* * *

Team Seven—and Ino—didn't get very far before they were interrupted by the sound of Rock Lee shouting after them. Taking in her surroundings, Sakura realized they were right where they should be… that was a relief, at least. Ino wasn't supposed to be with them, and she had no clue where Shikamaru and Chouji were, but…

Stopping abruptly—and clearly pissed that she was stopping in the first place—Ino folded her arms haughtily as she waited for Rock Lee to catch up to them. "What do you want?"

"My name is Rock Lee," He said, after taking a moment to collect himself. Ino was obviously unimpressed and looked like she was ready to turn around and keep walking. Turning to face Sasuke, he said, "I'm actually here to talk to you, Sasuke Uchiha."

The only person to outwardly react to this statement was Naruto. He couldn't seem to decide if he wanted to scowl at Sasuke or at Rock Lee, so he seemed to be compromising by scowling at the empty space between them.

"I challenge you!" Rock Lee continued. "Everyone is always talking about the Uchiha clan and talking about how great they are. I want to see if it is true. You would be a good test for me."

"A challenge?" Ino repeated. A light seemed to go off in her head. Excitedly, she dashed towards Lee, yanking Sakura by the wrist as she ran. Sakura—unprepared for Ino's abrupt movement—squealed in surprise at (what should have been completely expected) being dragged along like a dog on a leash. "You're _challenging _me to a _fight?_"

"I—" Rock Lee stuttered. "I was actually speaking to—Hey!" His tone turned stern. "Let go of Sakura! You can't treat her like that!"

Ino gave him a fierce glare, but Rock Lee walked towards the both of them unperturbed. "Sakura! Will you please be my girlfriend? I vow to protect you with my life! You do not deserve to be abused by someone lacking the delicate feminine beauty someone such as yourself embodies! "

Sakura looked up at him in surprise. Was he serious? Her eyes scanned over Rock Lee's form, quickly sizing him up. _Protection from Ino? Sign me up…_

"R-really?" Sakura bit her lip, accompanied by what she hoped was a light blush coloring her cheeks. (Next to her, she heard Sasuke groan in disgust.)

"Of course!" Rock Lee was the picture of earnestness—Sakura's very own loyal, dedicated, pure white knight.

"Listen here, buddy," Ino interrupted, "If you want to fight me so badly, then I accept your challenge."

"But-" Rock Lee stammered. Poor boy. He seemed torn between being polite and wanting to ask what the hell was running through Ino's mind. Steeling himself, Rock Lee inclined his head. "I am sorry, but as I said earlier, I am here to test myself against Sasuke Uchiha."

"I don't care. _I'm _the one in charge here. If you want to fight Sasuke, you have to go through me first!" As she finished, Ino shoved Sakura away from her and took what Sakura assumed was supposed to be some kind of intimidating battle stance.

Scrambling to her feet, Sakura hissed, "Ino—what are you—please don't use Mokuton!"

"I don't need Mokuton to beat this idiot!" Ino said haughtily. "But first, let's make this more interesting."

Four heads turned towards Ino.

"Wha—huh?" Rock Lee faltered.

"If you can beat me, I'll let you go on a date with Sakura."

"What?!" Sakura and Naruto said in unison.

"...And if I win, you have to be my slave for the rest of the Chunin Exams."

Rock Lee looked at Ino. Looked at Sakura. Looked at Ino again.

"You've got to be kidding me," Sasuke said. "Please tell me you're not actually taking her seriously."

"What exactly do you mean by _slave_?" Rock Lee asked carefully, folding his hands neatly behind his back.

"Whaaat?" Naruto's eyes were bugging out of his head. "Y-you wouldn't go on a date with that weirdo, right, Sakura? Right?" He seemed to calm down when he saw Sakura adamantly shake her head (although maybe it had more to do with the fact that she looked three seconds away from bursting into tears again).

"It means you have to do whatever I tell you to do. What else do you think slave means?"

"Er, yes, well," Rock Lee cleared his throat, obviously uncomfortable, "You could ask me to quit the Exams, or surrender during a fight. This is something I cannot do."

"Oh, fine. I wouldn't want you to do that anyway," Ino said. "How about this? If I win, you have to do whatever you can to help my Team pass the Chunin Exams, no matter what."

"No one in their right mind is going to agree to that," Sasuke said. "You'd have to be-"

"I accept your conditions!" Rock Lee bowed.

* * *

Sakura was watching the fight with what could only be described as morbid fascination. The duel itself started off eerily similar to Rock Lee's fight with Sasuke—at least, what she recalled from it. Lee was simply too fast for Ino. He dodged all of her blows, and she barely had time to block his. If anything, Sakura guessed he was going easier on her. He hadn't gone easy on Naruto, though. Maybe he had trouble hitting a woman? _It'd probably fit his character, I guess_, Sakura thought. And unlike Sasuke, Ino provided running commentary during the fight, although said commentary mostly consisted of phrases like "Damn it!" and "Why the hell is he so fast?" and "This is so unfair!"

"Beat him to the ground, Ino!" Naruto was shouting. "Make him sorry he ever asked to fight Sasuke instead of me!"

_Of course_, Sakura sighed. _It figures that Ino would somehow reduce Naruto to being the trash-talking sidekick. _

Sakura snuck a peek at Sasuke, only to find him staring curiously across the room. On the far side of the area, near entrance to the hall that led to the _real _room 301, stood Hinata.

_That's weird_, Sakura thought. _I don't remember Hinata being here. Where did she come from? _

"What's she doing here?" Sasuke said, echoing her thoughts.

"I don't know…" Sakura walked towards her, waving. "Hey, Hinata, what are you-"

Abruptly, Hinata put a hand out towards her, motioning for her to stop. Not once did she look towards Sasuke and Sakura. Hinata's eyes remained plastered on the ongoing fight, and she appeared to be whispering something very quickly under her breath. Sakura tried to listen in, but Hinata was speaking too quietly for her to hear. The sight was unsettling.

"Hey Sasuke…" Sakura said hesitantly, "Can you hear what she's saying?"

"No."

"Do you think you could use your Sharingan…?"

Sasuke stared at her strangely, but after a moment, comprehension struck. "Yeah, I can."

In an instant, his Sharingan activated. Sakura held her breath as she waited for Sasuke, watching curiously as he reads Hinata's lips.

After a moment, Sasuke frowned. This was quickly replaced with a look of pure confusion.

"What is it? What's wrong?"

"I don't…" He stopped, unsure of what to say. "'Update stats set local underscore atmosphere equals quotation mark four a-t-m quotation where…" Sasuke repeated back. "..What the hell?"

Across the room, Hinata had finally stopped focusing on Ino's fight and was now staring directly at them.

Sakura gulped. So did Sasuke.

"...location in (SELECT location FROM people WHERE name = 'Rock Lee')," Hinata said. "UPDATE people SET surface_area="1000 m^2" where NAME='Rock Lee'."

"Wh-what's going on?!" Rock Lee gasped.

Quickly, Sakura looked back towards the fight, just in time to see Ino dodge an incoming fist-to-the-face from Rock Lee. The genin stumbled as he corrected himself, clearly in shock. He appeared disoriented as he moved back into position. As Rock Lee rushed towards Ino a second time, his movements faltered—his fist slowed down, almost comically slow as Ino moved out of range with ease.

"This is…" Rock Lee. "It feels as if I'm moving through water. This can't be right!"

"Ha!" With one perfectly executed high kick, Ino launched him into the air.

Oh no. She wasn't going to… was she? Sakura glanced back at Hinata: the dark-haired girl was still mouthing words silently in a quick, never-ending stream. "UPDATE stats SET local_gravitational_modifer= 3.2 WHERE location in (SELECT location FROM people WHERE name = 'Rock Lee')."

"Lion Barrage!"

Rock Lee looked too dumbfounded to dodge Ino's kick even if he wanted to—at least, for the few seconds he was still in the air. As Ino's foot hit his stomach, Rock Lee was catapulted to the floor far faster than humanly possible. He broke through the floor as he hit, creating a genin-sized hole in the wooden planking.

For several moments, nobody moved.

"Ha!" Naruto finally broke the silence. "That weirdo's lucky I didn't get to him first."

* * *

"It's impossible," Sasuke insisted, still deeply disturbed by what had happened earlier.

"Y-yeah…" Sakura agreed, her voice weak. Sasuke was glaring at Ino from across the room as he spoke. The girl in question was loudly harassing some poor applicant from Grass who, she claimed, was in her seat. Shikamaru and Chouji were still at the front of the room next to Team Eight and Team Nine, who were huddled around Kabuto, listening intently as he went over his information cards. The information itself was useless to Sakura, and Sasuke was far too distracted to care.

Ino had bulldozed her way into the room with Naruto hot on her heels, blatantly ignoring her teammates and practically everyone else in the room, Kabuto included (_thank God for that_, Sakura thought). Although Ino was in no way intimidating—and barely thirteen, to boot—she still had breasts and long blonde hair and what would soon be a very well-developed figure. The chunin applicants couldn't seem to decide if they should be offended or if they should just sit back and leer at her.

"No, you don't understand," Sasuke said. "It's _impossible_. I've never seen anyone move so fast."

Sakura wrung her hands together. It was kind of nice, having someone else be the rational one for a change. Still, Sakura had no idea what to tell Sasuke. Ino was one thing, but Hinata, too? Whatever Hinata had been doing earlier, which Sakura still hadn't figured out, was decidedly un-Hinata-like. She wasn't sure if the Byakugan user's presence was a coincidence or not, but Sakura mentally added Hinata to her list of 'Highly Suspicious Characters.'

"Well, I mean…" Sakura finally answered, "I think Kakashi-sensei moves faster than that…"

"She's not _Kakashi-sensei_. She's _Ino_," Sasuke spat out, as if the very word left a sour taste in his mouth. "Her taijutsu skills are about as bad as yours are."

"But she did graduate at the top of the academy…" Sakura trailed off. Why was she defending Ino again, exactly?

Sighing dejectedly, Sakura looked back up at him. Sasuke was giving her the deadest of deadpan stares. He looked like he wanted to ask, "Are you stupid?" but was somehow managing to restrain himself, because actually verbalizing the question would be beneath him.

At this point—as she was actively trying to disappear into her chair—Sakura was saved from her fate by Ino, who announced herself by slamming her hand loudly onto the table as she sat down.

"This is taking _forever_," Ino complained loudly. "And we're not even at the exciting part yet. All we've got to look forward to after this is _more sitting_."

"Ino…" Sakura warned.

"What do you mean, 'more sitting?" Sasuke asked.

"For the written exam," Ino said. "Obviously."

"Written exam?" Upon hearing the words "written" and "exam" side by side, Naruto had appeared next to Ino, his face pale. "What written exam?"

Sakura lowered her head to the table in defeat.

"Most tests have written and performance sections. Hadn't you figured that out from the Academy? And it's totally dumb too. I mean, let's be honest, what the hell does advanced mathematics and physics have to do with being a ninja, anyway? It's not like I'm going to be wasting my time doing mental calculations in the heat of the moment."

"Physics? Mental calcula-what?" Naruto was growing paler by the second. "You really think they're going to test us on… on _math_?"

"Stupid, right?" Ino sighed, resting her chin on the palm of her hand.

"I don't… I don't know how to math!"

"Eh?" Ino blinked at him.

"How do you math things?!"

"..Math isn't a verb.." Sakura chimed in timidly.

"You know he failed the Academy exam _three times_, right?" Sasuke spoke up. "If the first portion really _is _a written exam, we've got no chance."

"This can't be happening!" Naruto moaned loudly, crumpling to the floor next to the table.

"Hey!" Ino snapped, sounding genuinely angry. Naruto froze at the sound. "You're worrying for nothing. Listen. You're _Naruto_. _The _Naruto. You don't really think they're going to fail you over something stupid like answering a physics question wrong, do you?"

"I don't know…"

"Look," Ino continued. "You're going to pass the test because you're Naruto. You don't need to worry about getting the wrong answers, because all of your answers will automatically be right because _you're _the one who came up with them."

That… Sakura stopped. _That makes absolutely no sense_.

"Really?" Naruto said.

"Of course," Ino reassured him. "Trust me, you don't have anything to worry about." With a wave of her hand, she gestured towards the other candidates. "Look how old everyone here is. They've all probably failed this test a dozen times. You see any other kids around here? We're not less experienced. We're just better than them."

* * *

The four of them were saved from being mauled to death by the rest of the room by Ibiki's timely appearance.

* * *

Throughout the written portion, Sakura held onto the tentative hope that Naruto would lose his nerve and opt out of the test.

After all, this time around, Hinata hadn't even offered to let him cheat. After finishing her test in the first few minutes, the dark-haired girl proceeded to stare vacantly ahead of her. Naruto still hadn't caught onto the fact that 'cheating' was the real objective, and Sakura strongly suspected that Ino _somehow _forgot that was the whole point of the exam, too.

It didn't matter anyway, because this time around, Naruto didn't even raise his hand.


	10. The Forest of Death

**Chapter X: The Forest of Death**

* * *

"Sakura, you're really starting to piss me off, you know that?" Ino said. "Now hand over the damn scroll already!"

"Don't even think about it," Sasuke said as Sakura began to reach for her pouch with shaking hands. "I've had about enough of this. Why don't you go lead your own team to failure and leave mine the hell alone!"

"I thought I told you to get lost," Ino said, glaring at Sasuke from across the forest clearing. Looking at Sakura, she said, "We've already got both scrolls and I want to head over to the tower _now_. If we hurry, I bet we can set the record for the quickest time!"

"She's not going _anywhere _with you," Sasuke said. He stepped around the body of the unconscious Rain-nin on the moss-covered floor and moved to stand in front of Sakura, blocking her from Ino's view. "Were you even listening to the rules? The proctor clearly stated that the only way to pass the test is for your _entire _team to make it to the tower with both scrolls."

"Yeah, so?"

"_So, " _Sasuke said_, "T_hat means _your_ team is disqualified."

"I don't know _what _you're talking about," Ino said. "All the members of my team are right here."

_"Team Ino isn't a real team! _What is _wrong _with you_?!"_

Sakura flinched. You knew things had spiraled out of control when someone like Sasuke had been reduced to high-pitched shrieking. She didn't blame him, really. Ino had been insufferable since she had found them. And, judging by the three unconscious ninja at her feet, Sakura's fear that Ino would abuse the hell out of Mokuton was, in fact, well-justified.

Even worse, Shikamaru and Chouji were nowhere to be found. Sakura hoped they were still alive. Speaking of which...

"Hey, Ino," Sakura said, "Who is our third team mate?" She hadn't seen Hinata around, nor had Ino mentioned her.

"Third team mate?" Ino said. She fiddled with the two earth scrolls in her hand as she thought about it. "Naruto, of course."

"What?" Sasuke's face was starting to turn red. "You can't—Those are _my_ teammates!"

"You snooze, you lose," Ino said, "Besides, you're just going fail the exams and defect from the village anyway."

"Ino!" Sakura gasped. "You can't just—"

"Yo," A voice called out. Four heads turned to see Shikamaru enter the clearing. He seemed as unphased as ever, and appeared to be unharmed (Sakura had worried there, for a moment). Chouji didn't appear to be with him.

Shikamaru looked at the men on the floor, and then looked back up at the two earth scrolls in Ino's hands. "You probably shouldn't wave those scrolls around like that."

"Huh?" Ino said, before stuffing them back into her vest. "Oh, yeah."

"Where's Chouji?" Sakura said.

"Oh, uh..." Shikamaru scratched the back of his head. "..Yakiniku Q?"

"_What?!" _Sasuke said.

"There's a Yakiniku Q here?!" Naruto's eyes widened. "That's awesome! Where is it? I'm starving."

"Don't be an idiot, Naruto," Sakura whispered, edging towards him. "He means Chouji quit."

"Actually, I think Ino fired him..." Shikamaru said. "Don't worry about Chouji, though. He's fine."

"I thought you weren't allowed to quit halfway through," Sasuke said. "You do know that means your team is disqualified, right, Shikamaru?"

"Hn... that's troublesome," Shikamaru sighed. He seemed put-out, but not nearly as put-out as Sakura would have thought. Shikamaru wasn't exactly high energy, but he was responding as if someone had just told him he had to run an extra 20 laps during training and not that he had just failed a very important career related exam. And she would have never guessed that Chouji would have just walked out of the test. What on earth had _happened_ since they entered the forest? It had only been a couple of hours since the second test had started.

"So what now?" Shikamaru said.

"Now we head down to the tower," Ino said. "We've got both of the scrolls, and an extra earth scroll to boot. Speaking of which..." She turned back to Sakura, who reflexively shrunk in on herself. "Hand over the heaven scroll already! I'm team leader, so I should be the one who gets to hold onto it."

Sasuke responded by pulling out a kunai and holding it out menacingly in Ino's direction. "Sakura, if you hand that over to her, I swear I'll—"

"Why don't you _both _hand over your scrolls to _me_, instead?"

The five genin turned towards the voice. Above them, a woman with long black hair and a grass head protector was standing atop one of the huge, twisted branches.

"Or if you'd prefer," she continued in a deep, insidious voice, "I can pry them from your cold, dead fingers."

Sakura felt her eyes widen, and realized she had been holding her breath since the woman had spoken. She could feel her eyes starting to water. "Oh, no..."

That was Orochimaru. Orochimaru was going kill them all. He was going to put that seal on Naruto, and then he was going to give Sasuke the curse mark, and then _both _of her teammates were going to be unconscious, and then she was going to be stuck here, alone, with Ino—

Before anyone had time to move, Sakura crumbled to the floor. "We're all going to die out here," she said in between tear-filled gasps. "I-I should have left with Ch-Chouji when I had the chance!"

"You've got to be kidding me," Sasuke said. With one hand, he grabbed the back of Sakura's collar and yanked her up off of the floor. "Pull yourself together. You're supposed to be a ninja. She hasn't even attacked us yet," Looking back up at the woman, Sasuke said, "We're not giving you anything."

The others seemed to be in agreement with him. Ino hadn't said anything since the grass-nin's appearance: she seemed to be thinking about something, which Sakura knew was never a good sign.

"Ino," Sakura said. "Are you—"

Sakura's words were cut off by the roaring sound of wind. The ensuing gust knocked her clear off of her feet, catching her by surprise. She landed on her back, knocking her skull soundly into one of the many gnarly roots covering the forest floor. Sakura wasn't sure how long she lay there, clutching her head, but when she looked up, she found herself staring into two huge, serpentine eyes.

_Oh, dear God. _

Choking on air, she scrambled backwards frantically on all fours in an embarrassing version of the crab-walk, before finally getting to her feet and running as fast as she possibly could. Could she even outrun a snake that large? Was it even possible? She didn't know what was worse: facing the snake and knowing it could lunge at any moment, or not facing it and having no idea where it was or what it was doing.

It didn't matter, anyway. Sakura only managed to get about ten feet before she tripped over a tree root. The last thing she saw before losing consciousness was the large boulder her face was about to make contact with.

* * *

"Sakura!" Someone was shaking her. "Sakura-chan, wake up! You gotta hurry!"

Blearily, her eyes shot open. Naruto was staring down at her, looking a bit dirty but otherwise unharmed. Behind him, the snake was lying curled on the ground.

"S-snake!" She yelped, sitting up so quickly she nearly banged her head into Naruto's chin.

"Don't worry about it!" Naruto said. "I took care of it, all by myself! Isn't that awesome?"

"Really?" Sakura said. That _was _pretty impressive.

"Really!" Naruto said excitedly. "I wasn't going to let it get you, Sakura! All I had to do was throw some kunai at its neck and it went right down. It did almost eat me instead, though..." He trailed off. "But that part's not really important."

"Where are the others?" Sakura said, looking around worriedly.

He pointed past her, in the opposite direction of the snake. "Up there. I think they're fighting that lady. Come on, let's go."

"Um..." Sakura said, suddenly not feeling quite so relieved, "Maybe it'd be better if we didn't..."

Ignoring her, Naruto stood up, dragging her with him. "I'm not gonna let Sasuke up-stage me! We better hurry!"

* * *

The first thing Sakura noticed when they reached the others was that Shikamaru was missing. That didn't _necessarily _mean anything, but given what she knew about Shikamaru, it could've been a bad sign.

The second thing she noticed was that Ino appeared to be yelling at the disguised Orochimaru. Sasuke was standing near her, and some ways ahead of them, one of the giant snakes was trapped in a large, wooden cage.

Mokuton. Of course.

As they drew closer, Sakura could finally make out what Ino was saying.

"...thought you could toy with us like that, huh? Jokes on you! I know who you are... _Orochimaru_."

Sakura could feel the blood draining from her face. What was Ino doing? Had she completely lost her mind?

"I-Ino!" Sakura said. She saw Sasuke look towards her, but Ino's eyes remained plastered on Orochimaru.

"Do you now?" Orochimaru said.

"Of course," Ino said. "And that's not all I know."  
_  
Oh dear God_.

"Ino!" Sakura said, much louder this time. "Don't you dare—"

"And what is it that you know, exactly?" Orochimaru drawled, her—his? it's?—tongue creepily slithering out as he spoke.

"I know that you're here to interrupt the Chunin Exams," Ino said. "I know that you claim you're here to test Sasuke, but that you're actually here for _me." _

Sakura and Sasuke both looked at each other, and then at Ino.

"Wait," Sakura said. "What?"

"Test me for what?"

"And why would you think that?" Orochimaru said.

"Don't play dumb," Ino said, rolling her eyes. "I realized what the truth was a few hours ago. It was Sasuke who tipped me off, actually. He kept complaining about how I couldn't be adopted because I had Yamanaka eyes, and that there has to be some other reason why I could use Mokuton. So I asked Sakura-"

_Oh no_, Sakura paled. She remembered that conversation, just barely. Ino had only just found them in the forest, and Sasuke hadn't quite lost his patience with her. At the time, Sakura had suspected that he had planned on stealing Ino's scroll. He dropped that idea as soon as he realized Ino was willing to skewer him if he pushed her too much. Sakura hadn't thought much about Ino pressing her for more information, since she assumed everything she said went in one ear and out the other.

Apparently, that wasn't the case.

"...so you see, it makes perfect sense."

Wait, what makes perfect sense?

"You're—you're not seriously claiming that you're the result of a genetic experiment combining the DNA of this - this _creep_ \- and Tsunade, are you?" Sasuke said.

WHAT?!

"And besides," he continued, pointing a shaky finger at Orochimaru. "That's clearly a woman!"

Orochimaru slowly turned his head towards Sasuke. With one hand, Orochimaru ripped the skin off of his face.

"Oh my god," Sasuke paled.

"Oh, I don't know. Is it really that impossible?" Ino said, turning towards the newly revealed snake Sannin. "Why don't you tell me, _dad_?"

"So," Orochimaru hissed, "You've finally figured it out."

"Ha!" Ino said triumphantly. "I knew it!"

"How could you _possibly _have been grown in a lab, kidnapped by the village from one of that _snake-thing's_ hideouts, and then secretly adopted by the Yamanaka clan?" Sasuke said in a shrill voice. His eyes were moving back and forth rapidly as he stared at blankly in front of him, either unable or unwilling to accept the reality of the situation. "I saw those adoption papers with my own eyes. If Tsunade didn't give birth to you, why would those even exist?"

..Sakura never should have left Ino alone with a main antagonist.

"That's easy," Ino said. "They were forged."

"Why would you forge a fake birth certificate for Tsunade, and then another fake birth certificate when you were adopted by the Yamanaka clan? That's stupid."

"Shut up!" Ino glared at him. "Maybe it was to throw off suspicion. Yeah, that's it! Nobody would suspect _two _forged birth certificates."

"That doesn't even—"

"Stop it!" Sakura said, running up to Sasuke and grabbing hold of him by the shoulders. "Stop encouraging her! You're only going to make it worse!"

"Make what worse?" Sasuke said. "How could this possibly get any worse?"

"Just..." Sakura stopped. She took a quick look at Ino (who had turned her attention back towards Orochimaru), and at Naruto (who seemed to only be half-listening to what was going on), and began dragging Sasuke away by the arm.

When they were almost out of ear shot, Sakura said, "Look, Sasuke. There's stuff going on that you just can't understand, okay? You're just gonna have to trust me. Just please, please don't argue with Ino anymore, okay?"

"What are you talking about?" Sasuke said. "What aren't you telling me?"

"Ino is... Ino is going through something right now. You know how Naruto's got the Kyuubi in him? Well, Ino's got... um, issues," Sakura had no idea where she was going with this, "She's suffering from post-traumatic stress. On account of the Mokuton."

Sasuke stared at her.

"It just happened overnight. She's having trouble coping with it," Sakura insisted.

"Really," Sasuke said skeptically. "Is this Orochimaru guy suffering from post traumatic stress too?"

"..Probably? ...Hey, where are you going? Sasuke!"

Sasuke ignored her and continued to walk back towards the others. Sighing in defeat, Sakura followed after him.

"..and there's no way I'm going back with you!" Ino was saying as they returned. "You might be my biological donor, but you're no father of mine!"

Orochimaru chuckled to himself. "You're quite the spitfire, aren't you? Very well. You seem to be doing well here. I look forward to watching you develop. Now that the truth's out, Ino, I know you'll seek me out eventually. Your potential is wasted here. I could teach you so... many... things..."

Sakura wrinkled her nose. That sounded so much creepier than it really should have...

With one last, "Goodbye, darling daughter," Orochimaru and his giant snake, now free from Ino's wooden cage, slithered away and out of sight, leaving Team Seven and Ino alone for good.

"Now that that nasty business is finished," Ino said, turning her attention back towards the rest of them. "It's about time we headed towards that tower, don't you think?"

"That would be great," Shikamaru said.

Sakura jumped, shocked to see him standing there like nothing had happened. "Where were you this whole time?"

"Hiding in the bushes," he shrugged.

..Fair enough.

"Sakura," Ino said. "Hand over the scroll already," she demanded, palm outstretched.

_Not this again... _Instinctively, Sakura reached for the object nestled in her pouch... only to realize it was empty.

"Oh no," Sakura whispered.

"Oh no?" Ino said. "What do you mean oh no?"

"I-I-" Sakura stammered, "I-must-have-lost-it-in-the-fight!"

"YOU WHAT?!"

"I'm sure it's fine! I-It's probably on the floor somewhere!"

* * *

It wasn't on the floor somewhere.

The five of them scoured the area and found absolutely nothing of interest. In their search, they passed by the three rain-nin from earlier, who were beginning to regain consciousness. Naturally, Ino took out some of her rapidly growing fury by knocking them out cold again.

"This is unbelievable," Sasuke was saying to himself. "It's like you've all gotten even dumber since I first met you. How is that possible? How did you even survive our mission to Wave?" Turning to Ino, he said, "How have you not been kicked out of Team Ten?" When nobody responded, he shook his head. "You should all be dead by now. All of you."

"The only one who should be dead right now is Sakura," Ino said. Sakura gulped. "If we don't find another scroll and soon, you're going to regret it."

An hour later—just when Sakura thought Ino was going to turn on her—they had the fortune of running into a trio of hapless leaf-nin. The shinobi were hesitant on being outnumbered at first, but ultimately underestimated the group due to their youthful appearance. To be sure, tree branches sprouting out of a little blonde girl's hands and rushing at you like bizarre, wooden tentacles was enough to make most people shit bricks. It helped that most ninja hadn't seen Mokuton in action before. And Ino always went for the jugular.

Even better, the leaf-nin had a heaven scroll on them. It just as easily could have been the one Sakura had dropped on the floor, all things considered. They _had _gone down rather easily...

"That's it," Ino said, after tucking the heaven scroll into her vest, next to the two earth scrolls. "Sakura, you're fired."

"Huh?" Sakura said dumbly. "Fired from what?"

"From Team Ino. Naruto," she said, turning towards him. He perked up at the sound of his name. "You're my new number two."

"Awesome!" Naruto said. "What's a number two do?"

"You don't want to know," Sakura said darkly. They were almost at the tower now. It was only 10km away from the starting gate, which was about two hours of a walk away. "So, I guess it's just you and Naruto completing the test, huh?"

"Don't be daft," Ino said. "Shikamaru is also on Team Ino."

_Since when? _

Sasuke started laughing. The sound made Sakura shiver.

"Um, Sasuke," Sakura said. "Are you doing alright?"

"Oh, I'm fine," Sasuke chuckled. "Totally fine. Sakura, let's just go. We'll go to the tower. When we get there, me, you and Naruto—I mean, we're the only full team, and we'll have both scrolls, and it'll be fine. Everything will be fine."

Sakura was starting to get scared. Did canon Sasuke talk this much?  
_  
I think he might be starting to really lose it_, Sakura thought. It made sense. Sasuke did have a few screws loose by the end of the manga.

* * *

In the end, the five of them made good time. They were so early, in fact, that nobody was camping out at the tower waiting for them. To Ino's disappointment, they later found out that Gaara had still made it there before them, but all things considered, the second exam was a success.

After all five of them walked through the same set of doors, Sasuke and Ino had argued with each other for quite a while over who got to open the scrolls. He tried to cajole Ino into letting Sakura and Naruto open them, hoping that Ino would be tricked into letting Team Seven "win" while holding onto her delusion that they were all a part of Team Ino, but in the end, she wouldn't cave. Naruto _did _get to open the earth scroll, but it was Ino who opened its pair with him.

And when the scrolls were thrown to the floor, and the smoke cleared, it wasn't Iruka who stood before them.

"Congratulations, Team Ino," Asuma said as he smiled down at Ino, Shikamaru, and Naruto. "You've passed the second exam."

* * *

Sasuke had been strangely quiet over the last four days. He seemed to be going through the days in some sort of dissociative fugue, only giving one word responses when spoken to. Sakura figured it was shock.

She was pretty shocked herself. On the bright side, though, she didn't have to fight anymore and her life wasn't in imminent danger, so all things considered, this counted as a win in her book.

Since they had finished early, they hadn't had much to do outside of wait for the time to run out. Sasuke and Sakura had been allowed to stay and observe the rest of the exam, supposedly as a courtesy for reaching the tower with Team Ino, but mostly, Sakura suspected, because Ino had insisted and Asuma seemed disinclined to disagree with anything she said.

_Honestly, I'd rather be at home right now_... Sakura thought glumly. Everyone was gathered in the arena. Sakura stood near the back of the arena with Sasuke and a few chunin security guards, watching as the last contestant lines up and the Hokage recited his speech about the third exam.

"Sakura... Sakura!" Sasuke whispered. "We need to talk. Come here." He was motioning towards her as he began walking out the large open doorway near the back.

After following him around the corner, Sakura said, "What is it?"

Sasuke quickly glanced around the area, making sure no one was within hearing distance. Seemingly satisfied, he stepped towards her and lowered his voice. "Sakura, I think there might be some kind of conspiracy going on."

"Uh... huh?"

"Don't you see? Ino should have been disqualified from the exam."

"Um," Sakura nodded. "Yeah..."

"Well?" Sasuke said impatiently, "The exams are rigged. _The system is rigged._"

Sakura just stared at him.

"Look. What if they've already decided who's going to be made chunin?" Sasuke whispered. "How else do you explain what happened?"

"I—I don't—"

"What if... what if it's all true? What if Ino really _is _a Senju?" Sasuke said. "I've been thinking about everything... Ino showing up with some sort of secret birth certificate, and the way she beat up Rock Lee like - like it was _nothing_."

Sakura had no idea what to say.

"And _then _that creep in the Forest confirming everything," Sasuke shook his head, "This whole time I've been wondering why no one's ever said anything about Team Ino or called her out on her behavior. Ino should have been disqualified, but she wasn't. And do you know why?"

"Um... no?" She said weakly.

"Because," Sasuke said, "She's a Senju. You heard what the Hokage just said. The chunin exams are about showing off the village's strength - it's a show of power. Attracting clients and warding off rivals. They let her get away with everything because she's a Senju and the village is going to make her a chunin no matter what because of who she's related to and what she represents. They've - they've _rigged_ the exams so she gets to move on while we get screwed over!"

That doesn't... _No, Sasuke. You're so, so wrong. So wrong._

"They wouldn't do something like that. The village is founded on, um—" Sakura stammered, "—honor and pride and stuff. And who is 'they' and why would they want to screw us over?"

"They—you know, the, the chunin exams. The Hokage. The government," he said, glaring. "I bet it's because of my brother. I bet they're worried that if I get too strong, I'll turn on everyone like he did. That's the only possible reason they would have stuck me with you, that idiot Naruto, and a teacher who sleeps all day. It's all starting to make sense now."

Nope.

"No," Sakura said. "I think that maybe you should lie down and we can talk about this tomorrow when you're feeling—"

"I'm not resting until I figure out what's going on. Sakura, how can you just sit down and take this? You're really okay with Ino _cheating_? I thought she was supposed to be your rival! Don't you care that the rules were changed just to let her win?"

"Okay, yes, I care, but I really think you should calm down. We'll get to the bottom of this, just... Look, when the first match starts, we'll go talk to Kakashi—"

"You can't talk to Kakashi!" Sasuke said. He grabbed her arm and dragged her back through the door. "Just look at him up there," Sasuke pointed up at where the four genin teachers stood on stage next to the Hokage. "He's a part of the establishment!"

"Uh," Sakura said. What did someone even say to something like that?" "Right."

"I've got some things to look into. I'll be back later. Sakura, I need you to stay here and keep an eye on Ino for now. I'll meet you afterwards."

Sakura watched Sasuke dart off, wondering where on earth he could possibly be going. Honestly, she didn't want to know.


	11. Villains Never Lie

**Chapter XI. Villains Never Lie**

* * *

**? ? ? Earlier.**

* * *

_Quietly, Kakashi moved along the edges of the building, straining his ears as he neared his targets. As soon as he caught wind of voices, he froze, wary of being seen or heard. When it seemed certain that nobody had noticed his presence, he moved closer until he could fully make out their words:_

"...Names aren't really important," Asuma said. He was staring at one of his students—Shikamaru, if Kakashi recalled correctly. To his right stood a dark-haired girl about Shikamaru's age. "Since I'm not from this world, my name wouldn't mean anything. If anything, calling me by anything other than..."

"..Asuma-sensei," Shikamaru said warily.

"..Asuma, yes. It'd be dangerous to use anything else, if anyone were to overhear us."

"Right. So... Asuma-sensei..." Shikamaru said, "Let me get this straight. You're telling me that you three are from another world—"

"More of an alternate dimension, really—"

"And that _Ino _has the ability to re-write and even recreate the universe."

"Right," Asuma said.

"_And _that the three of you were dragged here by a group of—" Shikamaru struggled to recall the word.

"..Sliders," Asuma supplied helpfully, although his tone was anything but.

"**—**people who can travel between alternate dimensions."

"Yes."

Shikamaru stared at him. "But _why_?"

Next to Asuma, Hinata blinked. She moved her mouth, mechanically, and spoke in a dull tone. "My mission—is to observe—"

Asuma cleared his throat, interrupting her. "We have no idea what their motivations are. What we do know is that they're dangerous, and at large." Shikamaru raised an eyebrow as Asuma continued, "That's why it's very important that we locate them as soon as possible. They are, in effect, the only people with the power to safely return us to our own universe. You figured us out more quickly than I anticipated, which doesn't bode well for us blending in. If you'd be so kind as to help us out here, I think it would be in everyone's best interest. And I do mean _everyone's_. For example, it's unlikely that we'll be able to locate those responsible without help. It'd be useful to know who is acting like themselves and who isn't."

"I see..." Shikamaru said slowly. He seemed like he was weighing his options, with the most prominent being, what were the odds of him outrunning a jonin?

"I know you don't believe me," Asuma said, "But you will. You've already seen some of what Ino is capable of. It's all true - Ino has the power to change the universe. You must know I'm not lying about that. And how do you think someone like Ino would react if you tried to turn us all in, or run, or confront her? I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to be the one standing in the way of an unstable person who is capable of destroying the world if she gets too frustrated."

"What exactly do you want from me, then? Information?"

"Do I really have to repeat myself?" Asuma sounded irritated.

"Well, to start with, Asuma-sensei doesn't sound anything like you," Shikamaru said.

"Oh, really?" Asuma said, wrinkling his nose. "How so?"

"I don't know," Shikamaru shrugged. "For starters, Asuma doesn't sneer as much. He's a patient, laid-back sort of guy. He's agreeable, he doesn't talk nearly as much as you do, and on top of that, you're way too**—**" He frowned. "Actually, you know, I haven't seen you smoke a single cigarette, either."

"Ah..." Asuma's face was blank. After a moment, he relaxed his body and his face broke into a smile. "Thank you for the advice. What a relief**—**and here I thought you were going to be difficult."

"Look, I'm only doing this because Ino**—**"

"I know, I know**—**"

"**—**and I don't want to be the one responsible if the world goes to hell**—**"

"As long as we keep Ino happy, everything should be fine. For the most part. In any case, it's best that we don't interfere with anything Ino does for now. Trust me - any damage done to this world will be completely reversed once we return. I promise."

"If you really want my help, I'm going to need more proof of who you say you are, and of what you claim Ino can do."

"You've already seen—Ugh, fine," Asuma sighed. "Hinata?"

At the sound of her name, Hinata seemed to wake back up. "Ye—es?"

"Show him." To Shikamaru, he said, "Don't mind her. She's still adjusting to this location."

_Frowning, Kakashi retreated back into the shadows and disappeared from sight._

* * *

**Presently.**

* * *

"Obviously, the Hokage would have cleared out and thrown away any incriminating evidence, but it would have been too suspicious for them to have destroyed everything."

Sasuke and Sakura were at the Uchiha residence. The floor was littered with a large assortment of papers, ranging from old medical records to half-empty day-planners that Sasuke had collected from the empty houses in the Uchiha district. Sakura also spotted a copy of the Shinobi handbook and what looked like several old academy textbooks.

With the second exam finished and the finals a little over three weeks away, Sasuke evidentally had a bit too much free time on his hands. The preliminaries had been skipped this time, for whatever reason. Sakura wasn't sure if it was because less applicants had made it to the third exam, or if it was because Ino had forgotten about them.

_No, that's ridiculous. Ino _was _changing things, but not creating them. I mean, even if Ino had some sort of influence over what was happening, the world they were in was too accurate for someone like Ino to be solely responsible, right?_

As if waking up in a new world as dangerous as this one wasn't scary enough... having to deal with the fallout was far worse...

"Sakura, stop spacing out!" Sasuke was scowling at her. "This is important."

"Right," Sakura said dully. "I'm listening." _But I really wish I wasn't._

"As I was saying..." Sasuke continued, poring over the documents on the floor. None of it looked particularly important to her. Yes, those were definitely grocery lists Sasuke had stripped off of some old refrigerators... and was that someone's photo album?

"This goes even deeper than I thought. I mean, just think about it."

Sakura _was _thinking about it alright, and frankly, it was starting to worry her. Apparently, Sasuke did not take failure well._ He must really have wanted to test himself against Gaara. Having to watch Naruto face off in the finals later is just too much for him to handle._

"Don't you think it's strange that out of the two founding clans, only the Senju have been Hokages? Not a single Uchiha? You know, it's all here. Madara was worried that the Senju wanted completely control over the village. The First claimed that wasn't the case, but if that were really true, why wouldn't they have appointed an Uchiha as the second Hokage?"

Sakura wished she had something insightful to add, but this really wasn't her area of expertise.

"Yeah, that's right. Instead of an Uchiha Hokage we ended up with another Senju."

Personally, Sakura found that whole backstory was unbelievably boring. She didn't remember a whole lot outside of thinking, "Wait, is Sasuke good or bad? When is he going to reunite with Naruto? Who is Sakura going to end up with?" But instead what she got was more village-founding flashbacks… So, all things considered, her memories of that part of the manga were a little hazy.

"And it doesn't end there. Look at the Third. Not only did they pass over my clan again, but the Second went and selected his own student. And the fourth was practically the same story. It's blatant favoritism. Not only is it favoritism, but every single Hokage so far has been related to the Senju in some way. It's... " Sasuke struggled to find the right words, "It's like a political dynasty. Even when the Senjus aren't in control of the office of Hokage directly, they are indirectly in control by placing their students in a position of power."

"Well," Sakura said, after realizing Sasuke was waiting for her to respond, "It only makes sense that the Hokage would want to choose a protégé that he trusted. I don't think there's anything strange about that…"

"Yeah, except that the only reason Hashirama was appointed Hokage over Madara was because they called for democratic election," Sasuke said. "What a joke. So what, Hashirama gets appointed by popular vote, but the rest of the Hokages are chosen by the previous Hokage? How does that make any sense?"

_Ugh, I don't know, Sasuke! Just leave me alone! Who cares?_

"I care!" He said, waving a piece of paper in her face, as if to emphasize his point (although Sakura was sure that particular piece of paper was blank). "If Hashirama was so interested in the popular vote, then why not open it up to popular vote again? Or here's a better one: Why didn't Hashirama appoint an Uchiha as the next Hokage, since he was the one who claimed he wanted Madara to have the role to begin with?"

"I don't know!"

"I'll tell you why, Sakura. Hashirama did it because never intended for Madara to be Hokage. It was all for show. Tobirama and Hashirama had it all worked out beforehand," Sasuke said. "The election was rigged."

Sakura covered her face with her hands and groaned. "No, it wasn't."

"Yes, it was."

"Just because an Uchiha hasn't been Hokage yet doesn't mean that there's some conspiracy to keep the Uchiha out of positions of power—"

"That's exactly what it means!"

"—and do you have any proof? I mean, _real _proof?"

"I don't need proof. It's obvious," Sasuke said, clearly agitated by the direction the discussion had taken. "Every Hokage in power has either been a Senju or a Senju puppet."

This conversation was going no where good. "Weren't you talking about Ino earlier? I don't see what this has to do with the Chunin Exams at all…"

"Isn't it obvious? Ino is the daughter of Tsunade Senju, and the first of Hashirama's descendants to have access to Mokuton. Just you watch, Sakura. She's going to pass the Chunin Exams, she's going to make chunin and when she's older, they're going to make her the next Hokage. All because she's a Senju. Face it: it isn't about who's the most powerful ninja in the village. It's about who's _already _in power... and it's going to stay that way, too, because the only clan that's ever had the power to rival the Senju was the Uchiha, and they're—"

"Excuse me," Kakashi said, poking his head through the doorway to the living area. "Just checking in on everyone." When they both simply stared up at him with blank faces, Kakashi sighed. "You both missed training this morning."

Oh, that was still a thing?

"Look, I realize you two won't be participating in the final exams, but that doesn't mean life won't go on as usual. Cheer up. There's always next year?"

"_Team _training, huh?" Sasuke said. "And what team are you talking about?"

"Ah..." Kakashi looked back and forth between his two students, unsure if that was a rhetorical question or if Sasuke actually expected an answer. "Team Seven..?"

"Team Seven. Right," Sasuke rolled his eyes. "That's funny, since I'm pretty sure you can't be on two genin teams. And since Naruto is on _Team Ino_, he can't be a member of Team Seven. And if we don't have a third member, then we aren't really a genin team, are we?" Sasuke crossed his arms and glared. "So I have no idea what team training you're talking about."

There was a moment of silence as Kakashi stared back at them. He opened his mouth, about to speak, but then seemed to think better of it and smiled instead.

"Right. Well, it's all a bit too complicated to explain. While it's true that Naruto has been temporarily assigned to another team, the three of us will continue on until the end of the exams."

"So Naruto really is with Ino's team now?" Sakura said, frowning. An unpleasant thought was beginning to form in the back of her mind. Because if Naruto is with Ino, then...

"Shouldn't Naruto be training with Ebisu?" Sakura blurted out.

Kakashi blinked at her. "..No?" He was looking at her strangely.

"I-I just mean..." Sakura bit her lip. Of course he wouldn't be training with Ebisu... Kakashi didn't need to take Sasuke out for private, one-on-one chidori lessons either if he wasn't participating in the exams. And even if Kakashi _did _decide to teach Sasuke chidori, there's no reason Naruto wouldn't be training with Ino instead. It was too much to hope that Ino would remember or even care about continuity. If Naruto didn't train with Ebisu, he wouldn't end up training with Jiraiya. And no Jiraiya was bad news.

"I think training with Ebisu would be good for him," Sakura said slowly. "I-I mean, um... Naruto could really use some one-on-one training... The exams are really dangerous..."

"Who cares?" Sasuke snorted. "He's on Team Ino, remember? I'm sure they'll all be _fine_. They'll probably all pass with flying colors."

"Mm, well, Sasuke does have a point," Kakashi said, "Naruto is out of my hands now. I wouldn't worry about him."

Really, really bad news.

"Kakashi-sensei," Sakura said. "Can I talk to you?"

"Of course!" Kakashi smiled. He proceeded to stand there, looking down at her expectantly.

"Um," Sakura glanced at Sasuke, who had gone back to rummaging through one of the stacks of papers he had scattered across the floor of the living room. "I meant alone..."

"Ah," Kakashi said. "Come on, then." He motioned for her to follow. Relieved, she trailed behind him out through the door, leaving Sasuke to... whatever it was he was doing.

As soon as they stepped out back and Sakura had checked to make sure the door was soundly shut, she turned towards Kakashi.

Now that she was staring at him, though, she couldn't seem to find the words.

"Naruto needs to train with Ebisu-sensei," Sakura finally spoke. "It's very important."

"I see," Kakashi said. "And why is that?"

"I..." This was a lot harder than she thought it would be. Kakashi was staring at her, as patiently and obliviously as ever. Would he even believe her? Sakura could feel her stomach muscles tense, her throat closing up as she imagined the worst possible scenario coming true. What was she supposed to say to that? How was she supposed to explain? This was ridiculous. Everything was just wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. And Ino...

"What's going on with Ino?" Sakura said, her voice quiet. "Why did they let her pass the exam?"

"Ino?" Kakashi's brow furrowed, as if this question was out of the blue—as if it's something he hadn't yet stopped to think about. "Oh, right. I'm not too sure. I'm not on the exam board and the rules are a bit fuzzy—"

"They can't be _that _fuzzy," Sakura interrupted. "I know for a fact that this isn't how things work. And I know that—" She stopped, frustrated. "If Sasuke can figure it out, then you can too. You have to know something."

Kakashi blinked at her slowly, once, twice. And remained silent.

Why was he playing dumb? He _was _playing dumb, wasn't he?

Oh no, Sakura thought. What if Kakashi's mind has been messed up? After all, Ino was in no way related to Orochimaru, and yet, he really had said those things back in the forest. What if Kakashi had been changed by her, too? What was going on?

_I really can't take this anymore._

"Ino isn't Ino!" Sakura finally blurted out. "You know that, don't you? She looks like Ino, but she's someone else. She's-she's an impostor! She's from another world! And she's changing things!"

"Sakura—"

"And I'm not Sakura, either! I'm—well, I don't know who I am exactly, but I'm not from here and I'm definitely not a ninja, and—"

"Sakura, I already know."

Sakura stopped talking immediately. Her mind was blank. He what? What had he said?

She opened her mouth to speak—to say anything, really—but Kakashi interrupted her:

"Not here. It isn't safe," Kakashi said. "We should go somewhere more private to talk. It would be unfortunate if Sasuke overheard us."

* * *

That's how Sakura found herself sitting in Kakashi's flat, with a hot cup of tea in her hands. For some reason, she still felt cold...

It was understandable, though. This was a lot to take in.

"You... heard Asuma-sensei and Shikamaru talking?" Sakura said.

"Yes," Kakashi confirmed with a nod. "After that first joint meeting we had, I got suspicious. Ino had already been acting strangely, but it was obvious to me that Asuma was not himself."

"I see..." Sakura wasn't sure what to say. She hadn't even for a moment suspected that Asuma was from their world. On the other hand, he hadn't reacted at all to Ino's odd behavior. But then again, neither had anyone else, outside from Sasuke.

"As you and Sasuke already know, what happened during the second exam was not normal. Far from it, in fact." Kakashi pursed his lips, frowning into his tea. His mask was down, and the material had gathered a few inches below his chin. "If Asuma is telling the truth—and I know this might be hard to believe—then Ino is a person who has the power to create and destroy the world at will."

"Create... and destroy the world?"

Is that why Ino could use Mokuton? And why Orochimaru had confirmed her story?

That was crazy, though. That sort of thing just didn't exist.

_Oh, who am I kidding?_ Sakura thought. _I'm in a world ripped straight out of a manga. What do I know about anything? _"But... how? Does Asuma know who Ino is? Does he know me? Why don't I have any of my memories? Why-"

"I don't know," Kakashi interrupted. "But Asuma said something that I found concerning. In fact, I wouldn't trust him at all if I were you."

"Why? What did he say?"

"Well," Kakashi said slowly, "He said that although Ino had immeasurable powers, she was not currently aware of them. If she knew the extent of her true abilities, she could turn the whole world upside down. It would be chaos."

It already was...

"I don't understand, though," Sakura started, "Why—"

"Ah, why. You see—" Kakashi cleared his throat, "—this is only a theory, but I believe, from the conversation I overheard, that Asuma and Hinata are the ones responsible for bringing her here. You see, Ino believes that she is in an entirely new world. Before, Ino's powers were limited by her beliefs. Even if she wanted to live an exciting life, she was still a grounded person," Kakashi said. "However, the problem is, the entity that brought her here has put her in an entirely new situation. Ino's whims are no longer limited by what she thinks is realistic... and she seems to have a very active imagination..." He trailed off. "In any case, the people who brought her here did so to test the full extent of her powers in a way that would limit the amount of damage done to her own universe."

Sakura was horribly confused.

"What are you trying to say—that somebody wanted to see how much havoc Ino could wreak if she had godlike powers? That's crazy." Sakura shook her head. "How do you know all of that? That must have been one long conversation you overheard..."

"Ah, you're right, of course," Kakashi said. "I only added in some of my own thoughts..."

"But why Naruto?" Sakura asked. "I mean, of all the manga, I never would have thought—Hey!" Sakura looked up abruptly. "Are all manga alternate worlds? That's-"

"Manga?" Kakashi frowned. "What manga?"

"Naruto is a manga in my world. I might not remember anything about myself, but there's no way I could forget _that_."

Kakashi seemed startled by this information.

"I see... This... This is a fictional world? Not some elaborate fantasy pulled from her—I see, I see... That's makes sense... Say," He looked back up at Sakura."Is Ino familiar with Naruto?"

Sakura nodded.

"And does Ino know that you're not**—**you?"

Sakura nodded again.

"That's... unfortunate..." Kakashi muttered to himself. "Listen, this is important, Sakura. Asuma said something about how there was interference**—**about how there are other people who hacked into the scenario-"

"Scenario?"

"Ah," Kakashi coughed lightly, "I mean universe... people like you. I think Asuma's goal is to keep Ino here for as long as possible, if not indefinitely, to see what happens when she is able to fully utilize her abilities. But the others**—**the people Asuma is looking for, I mean**—**only want to escape back to their own world. With Ino."

"I see..."

"So, Sakura... if what he said was true... I think you might be one of those people." Kakashi said.

"I don't**—**are you sure? I can't remember any of that. I can't remember anything..."

Kakashi shrugged. "I can't really say. However, and I don't know about you, but I don't want my world changed irreversibly by the whims of a god. Not if I have to live with the consequences."

"Me neither," Sakura said. "She's already ruined everything. Sasuke was supposed to get a cursed-mark, and don't even get me started on Mokuton..."

"Sakura," Kakashi said seriously. "How much do you know about what happens here?"

"Me?" Sakura blinked. "Well... I don't remember some of the little details, but aside from that... everything."

"Right." Kakashi said, "Everything." He seemed to be thinking quickly. "Sakura, as terribly traumatic as knowing the .. _future _might be for me, being unrelated to this and all, it would still be helpful if you told me, you know, e_verything_."

Tell him everything? Sakura looked up at him, really looked at him, then**—**he was gazing at her intensely. She was so caught up in her own shock that she didn't stop to think about him. "You're taking this awfully well."

"I've had time to adjust," Kakashi said simply. "It's hard to be shocked after a while, don't you think?"

"Right..."

"And I'm a laid-back guy. I've been through a lot."

"I guess..."

"Don't worry about me. Really. I can tell you don't want to be on your own with this. I can help you, but only if you tell me what you know. Don't leave anything out."

* * *

**A/N: Thank you, Enbi, for the help! :) **


	12. So Let Me Get This Straight

**Chapter XII. Let Me Get This Straight**

* * *

"_Tell me everything_," he'd said.

How exactly was one supposed to summarize 700 chapters of a manga? That was, what, 90 full volumes in book form, and literally _hundreds_ of animated episodes? And Kakashi had said _everything_. It was one thing to know what was going to happen, and quite another to explain it effectively.

"Er, well..." Sakura said. "You see, Naruto is, um... it's an anime about a kid named Naruto, who lives in a ninja village called Konoha-"

"..Sakura. I know what Konoha is."

"Oh, right."

"I live here."

"Sorry. Um, it's just, this is kind of hard," Sakura sighed. "I'm not sure where to start."

"You could try starting with right now," Kakashi suggested.

Right, well, that _would _make sense, but... "Well, the thing is, Ino's sort of already messed that up. I'm not sure what's going to happen now and what isn't."

"That's understandable, but we'll deal with that afterwards. Why don't you just tell me how things were supposed to happen before Ino and you arrived here?"

"Okay," Sakura said. "I can do that. Well, let's see... nothing really significant happens until the finals, I guess. Naruto is supposed to be learning how to summon frogs with Jiraiya and _you're_ supposed to be teaching Sasuke how to use chidori, since he got matched up with Gaara—"

"Gaara, the sand genin?"

"Right," Sakura nodded, "But since we're not in the finals this time around, I guess that part doesn't really matter, except that it _does _matter because Sand is supposed to attack during the exam. They've teamed up with Orochimaru and the Sound Village and—"

"Wait, stop. Suna is going to attack us?" Kakashi said, frowning. "Do you know more about that? Do you have any proof?"

"How would I have proof?" Sakura shook her head. "And as for why, I can't really remember. Money probably. I don't know. Anyway, so then…" Where was she? "...Um, Gaara turns into Shukaku during his fight with Sasuke..." ..Or maybe he didn't turn into Shukaku until later._ I can't remember if he turned into the demon or if he just got really pissed off. _"..and then Sand comes out and decides to attack because of Gaara. Wait, was that how that happened? I remember Kabuto using that feather jutsu and making everyone sleepy. Oh, and Pakkun was there too for some reason."

"I... see."

"Yeah, so then we end up chasing Gaara into the forest and at some point he ends up choking Sakura out and then Sasuke gets injured and Naruto turns into the Nine-tails and beats him."

"..Naruto beats Sasuke?"

"No, he beats _Gaara_. Aren't you listening?" Sakura said. "That part's really important too 'cause it's one of Sasuke's defining moments. You know how insecure Sasuke is. He's obsessed with his brother and he can't stand the idea of Naruto being stronger than him. Hey, Kakashi, do you think that maybe if Sasuke wasn't around when Naruto beat Gaara that he wouldn't run off with the Sound Four?"

"I don't..." Kakashi looked confused, "..the Sound Four?"

"Orochimaru's henchman," Sakura clarified. "They were introduced during the Sound Invasion. There are four of them, and they're Orochimaru's best soldiers, or something like that. And they all happen to be teenagers. ..That part was kind of weird. Sasuke ends up leaving with them after—"

"Okay, wait, stop for a second," Kakashi interrupted again, "What happened with the Sound Invasion? Does that mean we won?"

"Huh? Oh, right! Yeah, we win, Sand retreats and Gaara ends up as a good guy after Naruto talks to him for a while. Oh, also, the Hokage gets killed by Orochimaru and Tsunade replaces him as the Fifth. Anyway, so Naruto and Sasuke—"

Kakashi let out a deep sigh and remained quiet for the rest of the conversation.

* * *

**About an hour later.**

* * *

Kakashi had been staring into his teacup for the last several minutes. He hadn't spoken since she had finished her story, and it was starting to make Sakura nervous. After Kakashi had stopped interrupting her, Sakura had fumbled a bit with her narration, but overall she felt like she had done a pretty good job. Sure, she had to backtrack a few, well, dozen times —after all, the timeline was kind of confusing and there were _a lot _of characters, but that was understandable, right?

Still, she couldn't tell if Kakashi was upset or just _really _confused.

"Um, so..." Sakura finally said, "Do you have any questions?"

"Questions?" Kakashi smiled. Even Sakura could tell _that one _was strained. "Where do I even begin?"

_Now you know how I feel_, Sakura thought.

"..Let me get this straight," Kakashi said. "There's a man named Tobi, who is pretending to be Madara, who is actually Obito, who isn't actually dead because he was rescued by the _real _Madara, who, incidentally, _is _supposed to be dead—"

"Yeah, but he wasn't dead at the time," Sakura added. "Well, he was dead, and then he wasn't, and then he was, and then he comes back as zombie, and then he comes back to life again."

"And then he dies. Again."

"Right."

"But as of this moment, he's still currently dead."

"I think so," Sakura said. "Probably."

"Okay... I think," Kakashi said hesitantly, "So, Madara is manipulating Obito, who is manipulating the Akatsuki into collecting all of the tailed-beasts, in order to summon the ten-tails, in order to cast the Eye of the Moon Plan, so that he can, and I quote, "live in a perfect dream world where he spars with Hashirama over and over again for the rest of eternity.'"

"Well, I mean, probably," Sakura said. "But that part doesn't matter, because Kaguya—"

"..God empress Kaguya?"

"Well, that's not her _actual _name, I was just trying to be descriptive—"

"I really wish you wouldn't—"

"_Anyway_," Sakura cleared her throat.

"..Right," Kakashi sighed. "So, Kaguya comes back and tries to enslave humanity, until we beat her. And then Sasuke—and I apologize in advance if I get this part wrong—who was good, and then turned evil, and then turned good again, and then turned evil again—gets into a fight to the death with Naruto—"

"—but after they beat each other up for a bit, Sasuke gives up and apologizes," Sakura interrupted. "And that's how the Fourth Shinobi war ends."

"So let me… just…" Kakashi trailed off as he rubbed his temples with both hands. "There's going to be a continental shinobi war against an army of clones, but you don't know exactly when. The Akatsuki are collecting tailed-beasts, but you don't know where most of them are or how to find them. Obito is alive, Madara _will_ be alive, and it's critical that we find something called the 'Demonic statue' but you have no idea where that is either, and Orochimaru and Kabuto are somehow involved, but you don't remember which side they're on. "

"..it's really complicated."

"Isn't Orochimaru the one orchestrating the upcoming invasion?"

"Well _yeah_, but..."

"And I thought earlier you said if that if we killed Kabuto and tossed his body in a river, the world would be a much better place."

"Well, I mean," Sakura faltered. "Kabuto brings Itachi back as a zombie and heals Sasuke, which was pretty cool, but he also brought Madara back, which was pretty not cool. Karma-wise, he's probably in the negatives. On the other hand, he does end up running an orphanage, so your guess is as good as mine."

Kakashi was quiet for a moment. Eventually, he said, "Sakura… I have to admit, when you said you knew "everything" about Naruto, I was expecting something a bit more… in depth."

"I know all the important parts..."

Even Sakura knew she sounded like she was whining.

"While I do admit that it's, uh, impressive that you can quote verbatim Hinata's confession to Naruto during her fight with Pain, and that you seem to know the exact layout of Sasuke and Naruto's bedrooms, I'm not quite sure how that information is going to help us."

"..Maybe we can go over it one more time?"

"Ah, no, that won't be necessary," Kakashi gave her another fake smile, "I just need some time to think things through. It's a lot to take in…"

_Well, yeah. I just told him his friends were going to die, and... Oh no, he must be thinking about Obito!_

"Um, Kakashi, are you gonna be okay?"

"Hm?"

"I just mean… you know... with Obito and all," Sakura said. Feeling uncomfortable with the silence, Sakura continued rambling, "Y'know, he's not really evil, I mean I know he was for a bit and most of this is completely his fault, but if you think about it, he redeems himself in the end. Sort of..."

"..right."

".…"

".…"

The silence stretched as they both stared awkwardly into their tea cups. _Right back where they started. _

"..So, I think I'm gonna go home now.."

"That sounds good," Kakashi sounded relieved.

"Right."

"I'll let you know if I have any more questions."

"Yeah, okay.…" Not wanting to be rude, Sakura finished her tea in one gulp and practically bolted out the door.

* * *

**About two weeks later:**

* * *

Never again did Sakura want to wake up to the sound of Naruto pounding on her bedroom window with both fists while screaming, "SAKURA-CHAN, SAKURA-CHAN! You gotta come! It's an _emergency_!"

Once she had dressed, Naruto ended up dragging her to a set of training grounds she'd never been to before. He wouldn't tell her why, but it was easy enough to figure out—Ino, of course. When the two of them arrived, Ino was standing in the center of what looked like a large, shallow crater, pointing an accusing finger at the four genin in front of her.

_Why is Sasuke here? No, scratch that, why is NEJI here, of all people? Ino hadn't invited them all out here, had she?_ Sakura thought. _Oh, no—had Ino invited EVERYONE? Because if Gaara shows up here, I'm leaving. Immediately. _

"There you are!" Ino said as soon as she saw Naruto and Sakura approaching the crater.

"Naruto," Sakura said, "I thought you said this was an emergency."

'This _IS _an emergency!" Ino said. "_He_ won't leave me alone,"—Ino pointed at a scowling Sasuke—"And _he _won't let me have Rock Lee!" Ino finished, pointing at an equally irate looking Neji.

"He's not a toy, Ino," Tenten said, trying to reason with her, "You can't just _take _him."

"He's my slave," Ino said. "He has to do whatever I tell him to do until the end of the Chunin Exams. And I want him to help my team train. We need someone to practice our moves on."

"..What?" Neji finally spoke. "Lee would never agree to that."

"It's true!" Ino said. "Just ask Sakura!"

"I honestly don't care what Sakura—or _you_, for that matter—have to say about it," Neji said, refusing to look in Sakura's direction. "Lee is our teammate, and we're in the middle of preparing for the final tournament. You need to leave. Preferably _now_."

"I'm not going anywhere without Rock Lee," Ino said with a huff. She moved a few steps closer to Neji and planted both feet firmly on the ground, in what Sakura assumed was meant to be some sort of gesture of defiance. "As for you," Ino said, turning to glare at Lee, "You should be ashamed of yourself for going back on your word. What kind of a man are you, anyway?"

From the looks of it, Lee was about one insult away from bursting into manly, manly tears.

"Don't listen to her, Lee," Tenten said. As soon as she placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, Lee started bawling.

"Ino is right!" Lee said between tears. "I am a disgrace! My word means _nothing_! Neji, I am sorry, I must leave with-"

"Be quiet, Lee," Neji said.

"See, what did I tell you?" Ino said. "Lee wants to come with me. Don't you, Lee?"

"I-I, That is—" Rock Lee stuttered. "Ino—"

"You come here—with your _ridiculous _made-up team, I might add—you demand that we leave our designated training grounds, and then you try to force Lee to come with you to be your punching bag. And _you _have the gall to yell at _me _for not letting him come," Neji said, his voice eerily calm. "Unbelievable."

"My team is _not _made-up, and—hey, what the hell do you think _you're _laughing at?"

"N-nothing," Sasuke said, unable to fully stop himself from chuckling. "Why would I be laughing?"

"You think you're so cool, huh? At least I _have _a team, unlike a certain someone here," Ino said, glaring at him from over her shoulder. "Some of us have important things to do. You know, like prepare for the _Chunin Exams_ that we passed and you didn't. Why don't you go ask your stupid sensei if he has any more chores for you to do and let the rest of us train?"

That wiped the smirk off his face.

..And that was Sakura's cue to step in. "Um," Sakura said, "I was thinking-"

"Just you wait, Ino, I'm gonna find out the truth and when I do, _you'll _be the one who doesn't have a damned team."

"Wow, have you lost it already?" Ino said, shaking her head in mock disbelief. "You're not making any sense."

"Tell me where you found those documents about Orochimaru and the Senju," Sasuke demanded. "If those even _exist_. Were they in the Hokage's office, too?"  
_  
Am I invisible or something? _Sakura thought. "Um, g-guys..."

"And while you're at it, why don't you tell me what other secret documents that were conveniently left out in the open for you to find, huh?"

"Ugh, you're so annoying!" Ino said. "No wonder everyone in the village hated your clan."

Sasuke looked scandalized. "The Uchiha clan is..."—he faltered—"..._was_ a well-respected, integral part of-"

"Oh, please. That's why the village sent out all of those ANBU to track down Itachi and bring him back to pay for his crimes, right? Because everyone's _so _torn up about it."

"OKAY!" Sakura said. "I think it's about time for us to go!"

"I told you, I'm not leaving without Lee—"

"_Ino, please_," Sakura pleaded. She caught Ino's eyes and looked at her with what she hoped was her best doe-eyes-and-trembling-lips expression.

And for once, it actually worked.

"Oh, fine." Ino finally said. "We don't need him, anyway."

Rock Lee sagged with relief.

"And as for _you three_," Ino continued, pointing at Neji's team, "I'm really going to look forward to my team beating yours in the tournament. Assuming your team doesn't get crushed before you face us, that is."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Neji said. "But as long as you're leaving, I don't care."

"Whatever. Team Ino is going to blow you guys out of the water. We're gonna win that tournament, and when we do, you're going to regret not keeping your word, Lee."

"I'm confused," Tenten said. "Do you mean winning your match? I thought the Hokage said that the finals were a chance for us to show the judges our abilities. Didn't he say that we could win our matches and still not make chunin?"

"That's stupid," Ino said. "What's the point of competing in a tournament if you don't get anything special for winning? I know he said all of that crap, but you didn't _really _buy that, did you? That's just what the judges want you to think. Right, Sakura?"

"No," Sakura said meaningfully, "That's _definitely _how it works."

"I bet if the final tournament hadn't gotten interrupted, that's _exactly _what would have happened!" Ino continued on excitedly. "It's not like that's the first time those exam proctors lied to us about the rules, either—they did that with the written exam, too!"

Well, that part was, true, but...

"Look, you guys can think whatever you want. Just don't come crying to me when my team wins the tournament and makes chunin and you're all stuck as genin for another year."

"Whatever you say, Ino," Neji said.

* * *

**A/N:** As I kinda pointed out before, I am trying to introducing the HS crossover material as if it was new and OC-oriented. My aim is for this fanfiction to be read and understood by people who are familiar with Naruto and SI/OC type stories; being familiar with the crossover part would be an added bonus of guessing who is who and what's really going on, but I don't want it to be necessary to enjoy the crack. It's all in good fun. Anyway, I just wanted to say that I really appreciate everyone who has taken the time to leave their thoughts, since that's the only way I can estimate whether or not I've explained things well enough. So, yeah - thank you! :D


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